Trackback Spam
One of our newest NPT Forum members, DLZ, discovered something odd in the moderation queue of his new blog and was wondering if he’d been spammed. This is the answer to his question.
If you’ve been blogging for more than a day or two, you’ve probably seen trackback requests in your Moderation Queue.
Provided that you’ve set your Discussion options to allow link notifications (pingbacks and trackbacks) from other blogs and require than an administrator always approve the comment, a Trackback request will show up in your Wordpress Moderation Queue when a blogger publishes an article on their blog that contains a link to your blog.
Trackback requests are differentiated from normal comments in the queue by square brackets enclosing 3 dots, eg. [...], which are placed at both the beginning and end. The trackback consists of the title of the post, a link to the post, the site’s IP address and some of the commentary surrounding the part of the post that links to your blog… as shown in the graphic below.
You have the option to approve, spam, delete or defer moderation on the trackback until later. To decide whether you should approve, spam, or delete the trackback you’ll need to visit the blog from which the link originates.
My general rule of thumb for trackbacks is to approve them if the author has cited my work, provided proper attribution and added their own commentary on the subject matter.
For example, I heartily approved the trackback shown in the graphic below. Linda Buquet of 5 Star Affiliate Programs had found my “How Affiliate Marketing Works” video and blogged about it in a post entitled “How Affiliate Marketing Works – Great Video for Newbies“.
Not only does her post lend credence to my video, but the content on her blog is of value to my readers – those in interested in affiliate marketing – so of course I’m more than happy to share some linky love with Linda.
On the other hand, the trackback in the first graphic was not only deleted but marked as Spam.
Why?
Well, first of all, I would delete this trackback because this blogger’s post had nothing at all to do with the post on my blog to which he linked. He was talking about scam affiliate products with ‘bad ratings’ (whatever that means), picked up on my post about Affiliate Marketing with a Bad Credit Rating and apparently decided that the subject matter was what… close enough to be relevant? It was NOT in the least bit relevant and therefore patently obvious that the blogger linked to my post just for the sake of the trackback.
And although I could just delete the request, I chose to mark this trackback as Spam for the simple reason that this blogger has been consistently targeting my blog (and other’s) with spammy trackbacks.
Wordpress is smart.
Once a trackback from a particular blogger (IP address) is marked as spam, you won’t be bothered with having to moderate trackbacks in the queue from that blogger anymore. Their trackbacks will be sent to the Spam queue immediately where they will wait until you hit the ‘Delete All’ link and get rid of a couple hundred spam comments and trackbacks all in a single click. Killing that much spam should give you a nice little rush to boot. 
The point is to set your discussion options so that all comments and trackbacks are moderated. Take time to evaluate the post from which the link originates and decide whether or not the content is worthy or just there for the sake of the link, i.e. spam.
Want more info?
Rosalind Gardner is a Super Affiliate blogger, author, speaker, and Internet marketing consultant.
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“so of course I’m more than happy to share some linky love with Linda.”
Thanks for sharing the linky love Ros. I think we have a mutual admiration society started here.
You betcha!
Akismet helps filter obvious spam comments and trackbacks, but some of them are able to get pass the filter. The WordPress 2.5.x moderation queue is easier to use, in my opinion, because you can view the list and mark it as spam immediately by clicking a link. And it’s AJAX-enabled too, means no page reloading necessary.
You know Ros… ever since I took the Blog Classroom in 2006 Trackbacks have been a mystery to me.
I just couldn’t get my head around exactly what were good and bad trackbacks.
In just a few short paragraphs you cleared up the whole mess for me… thanks a bunch.
Hey Debra,
That’s awesome. Glad I could help!
Cheers,
Ros
This is a great post. Actually I never really understood how trackbacks worked, until a few days ago. This gives an even better insight which I can use on the trackbacks I receive as well as those I give.
Hey Frank,
Actually, the link to your blog will be picked up as a trackback simply by using the URL of the blog post.
So, all you have to do is copy the link from the address bar and not worry about trying to create a special trackback link.
I hope that helps!
Cheers,
Ros
Hey Ros,
Yes, that helps! Thank you very much!
I lament my late reply, I get side tracked with System Administration, DNS delegation and you name it. Gotta give it up for what you do Marketing Technique.
This may be the wrong place to post this but I used your link to sign up with Bluehost.com, because you are about the only person I trust online, and Bluehost.com is a good hosting provider but don’t forget they only do courtesy backups and if your box goes down, so does your business.
So, be sure to backup your Cron Jobs, MySQL Databases then make a tar ball of your domains and download them on a regular basis.
I’m going to leave my English sites on Bluehost.com but I think I will start putting my Spanish sites on HostGator.com because they do regular off site backups. I will sleep easier. Not to mention less work. The odds of the off site backup and your box going down at the same time is probably astronomical.
When I get some free time, hopefully soon, I will make a new photo album and send you a link so you can see how well Shiva is coming along.
Your friend always,
Frank and Shiva
To Whom It May Concern
One more thing, everyone using Firefox should download the RSS Ticker plugin extension.
Just go to the Tools menu at the top of the Firefox browser then to Add-ons. Click on Get Extensions down at the bottom right and do a search for RSS Ticker, thats RSS Ticker not RSS Tiger.
It puts a stock market type ticker at the bottom of the browser of RSS feeds of your choosing.
It’s the only way I can keep up with Rosalind Gardner’s http://netprofitstoday.com
Kind regards
Frank Funston Eckdall
Esquire
Hi! I was surfing and found your blog post… nice! I love your blog.
Cheers! Sandra. R.