Pingback

Pingback is one of three types of Linkbacks, it is a method for Web authors to request notification when somebody links to one of their documents. This enables authors to keep track of who is linking to, or referring to their articles. Some weblog software, such as Movable Type, WordPress (such as this one, http://jack-fx.com ) and Community Server, support automatic pingbacks where all the links in a published article can be pinged when the article is published.

Here is an example: I publish an article at http://jack-fx.com, and then another one using WordPress, writes an artile with link(s) to my article. My weblog software (wordpress) will know it immediately. Is it cool?

Essentially, a Pingback is an XML-RPC request (not to be confused with an ICMP ping) sent from Site A to Site B. However, it also requires a link. When Site B receives the notification signal, it automatically goes back to Site A checking for the existence of a live incoming link. If that link exists, the Pingback is recorded successfully. This makes Pingbacks less prone to spam than Trackbacks. Pingback enabled resources must either use an X-Pingback header or contain a <link> element to the XML-RPC script.