Do you sometimes write a series of posts on the same subject and wish there way an easier way to link all the posts to each other so your readers could follow the thread of what you’ve written? Say you’ve written four posts about Microsoft’s retreat from support of gay rights as I have. Right now, the only way I can link the posts to each other is by adding hyperlinks to each post for the other three posts. What a tedious job!
I’ve thought of a concept that would probably not be too complicated technically and would probably do the trick. Trackbacks are a very interesting feature that allow you to let readers of someone else’s blog know that you’ve written your own post that either comments specifically on the blog post or on the subject of that post. Then readers interested in the subject might want to read your perspective on the topic. And other bloggers can trackback their own posts to yours. This is what I call an external trackback.
I’m calling my concept an internal trackback. Using the same trackback mechanism, you could configure it so that you could trackback to your own posts internally by using their trackback urls. Since you’d be tracking back to your own posts Typepad could program trackback to notice this when you publish the trackback and automatically create an internal trackback.
The internal trackback would function slightly differently than the external. Unlike the external trackback which is essentially one way, the internal trackback would be two way because it would establish hyperlinks within each post to the other. It could be configured to create a small box at the end of the post saying something like: "See other posts in this blog on this topic" or "For more on this topic see these posts."
I’d like to know whether others find any need for this feature. If you do (and you’re a Typepad user) please send a Help ticket supporting my feature request. If you’re not a TP user but your blog service provides trackbacks, suggest this idea to them. I don’t care who develops it. I just want it to happen. And if this feature already exists somewhere, please let me know.
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This is an interesting idea. At my blog, we do have a need for this, as we do often refer to previous posts. I’ll try to motivate to do a feature request!
Considering the nightmare that trackback has become for spammers, i think Typepad would be better off giving consumers the ability to get rid of trackback before providing more openings for spammers.
Loren: Get Typepad Pro and you can do precisely that–turn trackbacks off. Yes, those spammers are a pain. But the key is to get TP to improve its anti-spam technology & practices rather than simply throwing out this marvelous feature that can do so much & could do even more.