Pingbacks and trackbacks: what are they?
A trackback is a method to notify blog authors when somebody links to one of their posts, enabling them to keep track of who is linking to their articles.
Let's say a visitor reads a great post in your blog. Instead of commenting they decide to post a reply in their own blog, and send a notification to of this. This notification is called a Trackback.
In WordPress, the place to send a trackback when you're writing a post is found below the main text edit area. Incoming trackbacks (meaning links from other blogs) can be found in the Comments area of the Dashboard.
A Pingback is very similar to a trackback, but with the difference that pingbacks are automatically sent as soon as one blog post links to another.
Both trackbacks and pingbacks will show up as comments in the comment field of your post, with a link back to whoever is creating the trackback or pingback.
This is a great way for both blog authors to reach new readers, since both their respective readers will have access to both posts.