Backlinks With Bob and Alice!

When you open a single post in any blog on Blogger you will find at the bottom two sentences which may mystify you. See picture below :


Click on picture to enlarge it. The first sentence is : "Links to this Post". The second is a link which may follow it closely : "Create a Link".


So you say to yourself "OK! Let's create a link!" and you click on the "Create a Link" link. Instantly a popup window comes up which mystifies you further. See picture below :



"Now what the #$@%&*##?" you say to yourself......................

Read More On "Backlinks with Bob and Alice!"

BLOG THIS WINDOW

This is the "Blog This" window. It opens the post editor in your blog with the Title and Link fields already filled in with the Title and the link of the post on which you clicked the link. Also a link to the post is present in the body of the post along with the correct anchor text.


All you have to do now is to type in your opinion or comment on the post and select the blog (if you have many blogs) you wish to publish the post in. Then on clicking the Publish button below the post is instantly published to your blog. You do not have to go through the usual route of login at Blogger.com and clicking on +New Post link on Dashboard.



What you have just done is put a link in your blog post instantly, instead of going through the normal route of coding it in. The advantage is that you do not have to leave the post, on the blog which has caught your interest, to blog about it on your own blog.



Now after publishing the post Google will index it and show the original blog that you have talked about him on your blog by putting a backlink on his blog. That backlink will point to your published post.



So the "Create a Link" link does indeed create a link but not on your blog. It is instead a backlink on someone else's blog pointing to your blog. The official Blogger Help page gives a nice example :

"For instance, suppose Alice writes a blog entry that Bob finds interesting. Bob then goes to his own blog and writes a post of his own about it, linking back to Alice's original post. Now Alice's post will automatically show that Bob has linked to it, and it will provide a short snippet of his text and a link to his post."

See picture below explaining the process :



Click on picture to enlarge it.


There is a difference in Blogger blogs. There is no short snippet as happens with trackbacks in Wordpress blogs. There are only Backlinks. See picture below of the current backlinks on How to put a picture in the Header post on this blog :

FACTS ABOUT BACKLINKS

1. You cannot create a backlink on your own post unless you put a link to it in another post.


2. You can add a "Blog This" link to your browser Toolbar. Drag this link to your browser's Links bar. Now you can instantly launch your Blog Post Editor from any site.



3. Backlinks are seen only after you enable them in Settings----->Comments----->Backlinks Show and also check "Backlinks Default for Posts" and Save Settings.



4. You can turn off showing backlinks for individual posts by clicking Post Options link in bottom left frame of the Post Editor.



5. Backlinks are shown after the link carrying post is indexed by Google BlogSearch. If you find that the post is not indexed by it you can ping Google Blogsearch manually. Copy and paste the URL or Permalink of the post carrying the link in the text box and click on "Submit Blog' button.



6. You can choose to delete the 'NO-FOLLOW' tag on your backlinks.



7. You can show the link of the post you link to as a separate 'Related Article' Link in your post footer.



8. You have to wait for a few seconds after the blog page is fully loaded before the backlinks will show up.



9. Snippets are seen on Trackbacks which are present in Wordpress blogs. At present Blogger has only backlinks. CORRECTION and UPDATE : Sorry Folks! My Bad! As Jose Lamas Rios has pointed out :

Backlinks in blogger do have snippets. Next to each backlink you'll see a triangle pointing to the right (the same one it's used for archive entries in the sidebar). When you click on it, the triangle will point down and a snippet will be shown.

Thanks for the correction Jose. Only thing is that in Wordpress the snippet is immediately seen and you do not have to click any arrow to expand it!! Thanks anyway. Much Obliged!








10. Lastly do not expect to be notified every time a backlink appears on your blog posts. There is NO backlink notification feature.

Trackbacks in New Blogger.

Trackbacks are not implemented by Blogger which uses backlinks instead. See Pinging Simplified. Backlinks appear beneath your blog posts when someone mentions the permalink of your post on their blog. Permalinks are permanent links/URLs of your posts. For more information on permalinks see Linking to Another Article. To implement Trackbacks in Blogger you have to use another tool..........

If you want to respond to a post on a blog you can click 'Post a Comment' at the bottom and type in your response. That comment will be displayed below that post so that viewer's of that blog can read your comments. The author of that post will also read it and choose whether to respond to it or not with a return comment below your comment.


However, readers of your blog will never know whether or how that post inspired you. To inform your readers about this interesting post you choose to include an excerpt from it in your blog along with the permalink of that post. Now your readers can read the excerpt and if sufficiently interested will click on the permalink to visit that post and read it in full. But the author of that post will remain unaware that you have shown an interest in his/her post, unless your blogging software supports trackbacks.


If you have trackback support then that post is pinged and an excerpt of your post and the permalink to it will appear automatically at the foot of the source post. The owner can then visit your post and comment on it. This sets up 'conversations' throughout the blogosphere enriching and aiding the flow of ideas.


Blogger does not have trackbacks enabled so we have to use haloscan instead. For this goto Haloscan.com and register which is free. Then input your blogging username and password, click Next and choose which blog you wish to install it on. Backup your template and click Next and changes are made automatically to your template. Then login to Blogger and republish your blog.


To send a trackback publish your post in which you mention the post you are interested in and its permalink. Then login to Haloscan and click on "Send a Trackback Ping" tab. Fill the form and paste in the permalink of the source post as well as that of your post and submit. This will then appear below the source post if trackbacks have been enabled by the author.