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If your blogging platform has trackbacks implemented, it’s usually pretty pretty easy to send one.

First, you need to find out the “trackback uri” of the post that you want to trackback to. The uri (universal resource identifier) is a special web address - created just to accept trackbacks about the specific post.

Somewhere on a blog, you should see a link called “trackback” or “trackback uri.” For example, on the top right corner of this post, you should see the “trackback” link in the “Page Info” section.

That is the trackback uri. Right click on it and copy it to the clipboard - you’ll need it later.

Now, while you’re writing a post, you need to tell your blogging platform to send the trackback.

Sending Trackbacks in Wordpress

When you’re in the Wordpress dashboard editing a post, you’ll see a trackback option.

Look below the text-editing box, and you should see a few options - Uploads, Option Excerpt, Trackbacks, and Custom Fields. By default, Trackbacks should be the third one down.

If you don’t see a text-field that you can type in, click the ‘+’ sign to open the Trackback dialogue box. Then paste the Trackback URI into the text field. If you want to trackback to more than one post, just put a space between each URL.

When you Publish your post, the Trackback will automatically be sent.

Sending Trackbacks in Moveable Type

Similar to Wordpress, Moveable Type has a field for you to fill in labeled “Trackbacks.”

When you log in to your editing screen and create a new post, look to the right sidebar. In the “Feedback” section (underneath Categories), you should see a textarea box with the label “Outbound Trackback URLs.”

You guessed it. Enter the URLs, one per line, and the trackbacks should go out automatically.

What If My Platform Doesn’t Support Sending Trackbacks?

If your platform does support sending trackbacks, I think you’ve gotten the picture by now. Find the textarea or text box labeled “Trackback” and paste in the trackback URI.

If your platform doesn’t support sending trackbacks, though, you’ll need to find some outside help. Thankfully, we’ve created a little application to send the trackback for you.

Go to the trackback form and fill it out. You’ll need to enter the Trackback URI, you’re blog’s name, your post’s title, your post’s URL, and a short excerpt of your post.

Click the Submit button, and your trackback will be on its way. If everything goes fine, you should get a success message. Otherwise, an error will appear to tell you what went wrong.

You can also use this for non-blog websites - such as articles you wrote on Associated Content. Just don’t abuse it - I don’t want to start banning IP addresses because of spam.

Head back to the main trackback guide if you want to read more, read the next page - “Why would I want to create a trackback?”