Trackbacks vs Links: What's the Difference?

[nicole.healthline]

Our Google Analytics social pages report isn't showing several of our links. And several links are from high quality sources, such as about.com. Does anyone know why this may be?

[glennfriesen]

Well said: "a trackback is essentially a notification of a link to your content from an external source." hear hear

[AlanBleiweiss]

Michelleh - while you got insight into what trackbacks are, I can offer this regarding why GA isn't showing some of those links.

Unfortunately, no analytics system is 100% accurate or complete, not even Google's.  It's possible that if they're new or recent, they will eventually show up in GA reports, however it's not guaranteed.

That does NOT mean you don't get SEO linking value for them, only that reporting systems are imperfect AND Google's intent is to show " a sampling" even though they don't make that abundantly clear in a way most people would even know that's their stance.

If you want to get more insight into Google's Sampling methods, you can read about theme in the Google Developer site here.

[DesignbysoapLtd]

I was just about to type that! Beat me to it Keri : )

Michelle - a trackback is essentially a notification of a link to your content from an external source. Hope that helps!

[KeriMorgret]

Hi Gigs20,

It looks like what you wrote is directly from Google's announcement at http://analytics.blogspot.com/2012/05/expanding-google-analytics-social.html. In Q&A, please list your sources, and make it clear when you're saying something from your own experience versus quoting someone else.

Thanks!

[GIGS20]

The concept of trackbacks, a protocol by which different sites could notify each other of referencing links, first emerged back in 2002. Since then, the blogosphere has grown in leaps and bounds, but the requirement for each site to explicitly implement this protocol has always stood in the way of adoption. Many are not familiar with Trackbacks, just think of it as automated Google Alerts for all of your pages: you publish new content, Google scour the web for pages that link to it and build automated reports for you right within Google Analytics - simple as that.

These reports provide another layer of social insight showing which of your content attracts links, and enables you to keep track of conversations across other sites that link to your content. Most website and blog owners had no easy mechanism to do this in the past, but Google see it as another important feature for holistic social media reports. When you know what your most linked content is, it is then also much easier to replicate the success and ensure that you are building relationships with those users who actively link to you the most.