February 25, 2005
HaloScan brings TrackBack functionality to Blogger, Blogspot, and other blogging tools w/o their own commenting and trackback features
Link: News - HaloScan.com.
Trackback and commenting go hand in hand, especially in the weblog community, but unfortunately, there hasn’t been an easy way for Blogger, Blogspot, Diaryland, Diary-X, iBlog, Newspro, Pitas, and many other weblog users to implement trackback capabilities until now.
HaloScan fills this need by providing you not only with the (free) commenting services we have provided for the last one and half years, but also easy, seamless integration of trackback services (both incoming and outgoing ping support) to all existing and future Haloscan members. All this at the unbeatable price of $0.00–FREE. Getting started requires minimal work–sign up, log in and follow the simple, two-step directions to install trackback and/or commenting into your weblog. We highly recommend that all existing and new users install both the commenting and trackback services but you can also install just one or the other as needed. If you have trouble with any part of this process, we’ll be glad to help! Also, be sure to send a trackback ping to this post if you install the trackback system or write about us in your weblog.
Hmmm — so many things on my plate, but I can’t wait to try out Blogger combined with HaloScan’s free remote commenting and trackback system. Could this make Blogger a true competitor to TypePad (or perhaps even superior - given that its FREE)?
I’ll post my findings soon!
Update: It’s not as simple as it seems. According to their tutorial on sending a trackback ping, each time you want to send a trackback from Blogger (or similar tool), you have to
- login to HaloScan
- click ‘Manage Trackback’
- click ‘Send a trackback ping’
- Paste the TrackBack ping URL into the edit box for ‘URLs to Ping’
- Fill in your blog name
- Paste YOUR permalink URL
- Paste a copy of your Post Title
- Paste (or write) an excerpt from your post
- Click the ‘Ping Now’ button.
Yikes - that’s more work/typing/copying & pasting than I want to bother with.
There’s a thread in their forums about adding some code to your Blogger templates which enables auto-discovery of TrackBack URLs (something that tools like MovableType and TypePad already do), which, if it works, could save some time - but as you’ll see in the thread people have found it difficult to implement. Your mileage may vary.
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Comments
March 3, 2005
Esther said:
FWIW, people who now use Blogger with HaloScan comments but decide to move to Typepad will discover that they can’t transfer their comments. If you use the Blogger comments instead of the HaloScan ones, they can transfer right over to Typepad (I needed a little help from the Typepad help people, but once it was done, it was done…_
March 29, 2005
Ken Dyck's Weblog said (trackback):
Sending a Trackback Ping with HaloScan
Hats off to How To Blog for tipping me off to Haloscan’s trackback sending feature. Worth trying out, I’d say.
December 9, 2005
Patrick Cormier said:
Hi Emily - I wanted to trackback to your article but I can’t find our Trackback link… kind of ironic!
Thanks for your article, it answered a lot of my furstrations and I have implemented Haloscan comments and trackbacks on my blog.
April 4, 2006
How to use Trackbacks to Promote Your Blog | 5 Minutes For Mom said (pingback):
[…] How to trackback can vary slightly depending on which blogging software you are using, but the main steps are the same. Unfortunately, some free blogging software, such as Blogger, does not support trackbacks. If your blog doesn’t offer trackback functionality, you may be able to use the free commenting service HaloScan to add trackback support to your blog. You can read what Emily Robbins has to say about HaloScan on her blog. […]
May 17, 2006
Steve Portigal said:
I’d say the trackbacks work maybe half the time. It’s not very smart about the type of things that get pings blocked; blacklisting, and “you’re going too fast” warnings etc. I typically get errors back no matter what, and I’d say half the time it goes through and half the time I’m out of luck. From their support forums I’d say that there are a fair number of unresolved problems (that doesn’t tell you anything of course about who is having no problems at all).
I’d love to find an alternative, frankly.
November 14, 2007
How to use Trackbacks « Robertjooste’s Weblog said (pingback):
[…] How to trackback can vary slightly depending on which blogging software you are using, but the main steps are the same. Unfortunately, some free blogging software, such as Blogger, does not support trackbacks. If your blog doesn’t offer trackback functionality, you may be able to use the free commenting service HaloScan to add trackback support to your blog. You can read what Emily Robbins has to say about HaloScan on her blog. […]