Is this considered a how-to guide? Yes? No? Maybe? 😀
I DON’T KNOW WHAT TO CALL THIS!!! This is basically just a quick post to teach you the proper ways of tagging someone!
Or as I’d like to call it – the power of pingbacks.
Sounds fancy, right? 😛
This issue has been on my mind a lot lately! I’ve been tagged for multiple different tags and awards now, especially in the past few weeks, but I’ve only ever received like 5 pingbacks (out of like 30 tags)!
I think some people might not know about the art of pingbacks lol so I am here to explain it to you!
(By the way, this is for WordPress users! I don’t know if it’s the same for users of other websites!)
What you should know beforehand is that when you want to tag someone in your blog post (for an award or a fun tag etc), only putting in someone’s blog URL is not enough!!!
But before I get into how to properly tag someone, here’s a little explanation of what a pingback actually is:
What are Pingbacks?
“Pingbacks are methods for alerting blogs that you have linked to them. A pingback is a special type of comment that’s created when you link to another blog post, as long as the other blog is set to accept pingbacks.”
You might have seen one of these in your own or someone else’s comments section:
Enabling Pingbacks
You can enable pingbacks by going to your Settings –> Discussion –> Default article settings and then click “Allow link notifications from other blogs (pingbacks and trackbacks) on new articles”.
You can also enable/disable pingbacks on individual posts via the Discussion module on your Add New or Edit Post page:
The Art of Properly Tagging someone
Now, let’s get into how to PROPERLY TAG SOMEONE IN YOUR POST! 😀
As I said before, simply linking to someone’s blog URL is not enough for someone to be notified that you’ve tagged them!
If you tag someone because of an award, a tag or whatever and you want to make sure that they actually SEE it, they need to be notified. And that notification is called a pingback!
How To Create A Pingback
To create a pingback, just link to another WordPress blog post! This is the important bit… you need to link to a blog POST! Not the simple blog URL!
So, if you were to tag me in one of your posts, do not use https://toomuchofabooknerd.wordpress.com but rather click on a blog post and copy that URL! It really doesn’t matter which post it is! I always use the latest post 🙂
The link will then look something like this: blogURL.com/2017/05/17/favorite-summer-reads/. All you gotta do then is insert the link in your post the way you usually would! 😀
WordPress automatically notifies you when someone linked to your post aka pingback-ed (is that even a word lol) to you! These pingbacks then appear in your notifications section! And you always have to approve a pingback which is great because that way you won’t ever miss when you were tagged in something! 🙂
You might have tagged some people for an award and they never got back to you because they did not get a notification for it! And I hope you now know that they weren’t being rude, they just genuinely did not know you tagged them! 😀
So, unless you have used the link to someone’s blog post to tag them, the person you tagged in the ‘Whatever’ Blogger Award or in a super fun tag might never notice it!
No one can be on WordPress and always check out EVERYONE’s posts every single day. And I certainly don’t have the time (or motivation) to go back like 3 days in my Reader and check everyone’s tags/awards to see if I was tagged!
Quick summary:
- go to Blogger A’s profile
- click on one of their blog posts
- copy the link of said blog post
- insert the link the way you usually would in your own post
- Blogger A will automatically get a pingback notification and see that you tagged them!
That’s it!
Please make sure to ALWAYS use a link to someone’s blog post to tag them!
What you can do as well is link to someone’s ABOUT page but that is only possible if they have enabled pingbacks for that page! (Unlike me, who complained about not getting pingbacks when I didn’t even have them enabled for my About page :P)
So check their about page to see if they’ve received pingbacks before! If yes, GREAT, link to that page! If not, use a link to a blog post!
I hope this whole thing was somewhat understandable! If you have any questions left, feel free to leave them in the comments! 😀
Thanks for reading and HAPPY TAGGING! 😀
Quotes and pictures are taken from this WordPress article!
This was actually super informative. I was wondering why I don’t get ‘ping’ed often nor why sometimes I properly do it for my own posts and sometimes it didn’t work. Now, I can do it correctly ^_^ Thanks~
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Yay, I’m glad you thought so! Yeah, I’ve been wondering the same thing until I read up on it and it CLICKED! 😀 I’m happy I could help 😛
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This was so helpful! I was wondering some people who were tagged never read the posts so this was super informative! Thank you!
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Yayyy, I’m so happy I could help! You’re welcome 😛
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This is actually so helpful! THANK YOU!
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You’re welcome! I’m glad you think so 🙂
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Seriously. I always wonder why I didn’t get notifications about being in tags.
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Me too! Until I finally read some articles/posts about it and figured it out myself 😀
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I’ve noticed that it also works for pages. For example, I and some other bloggers link to the About page, which shows pingbacks in the comments sections.
This is a very informative post. Thanks for sharing!
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Oh really? I’ve tried it with pages for some people and it didn’t work! They must have had pingbacks disabled :O and I don’t think it works for my own pages either!
But thanks so much for letting me know, I’ll have to check if I can change that! 😀
You’re welcome!
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I didn’t think about it that way. I guess I allow pingbacks because I see it in the comments for my page. I thought if mine worked that way others’ did too. I’ll stick to posts from now on to ensure a notification.
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Yeah, I think they’re automatically enabled for everyone and you will get a notification as long as you link to a blog post 😀
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Ugh, yes!! I always find me being tagged in things with no pingback!! This is a fab little walk-through. 😛
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Haha, I know right! I’ve been getting quite annoyed with it so I decided to write this post 😛 Thanks! 😀
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Great post! One time, I only found out about a tag I was nominated for because I searched my blog name on Google and it came up! And my go-to is to link an about page or contact page (if someone has one) rather than the latest blog post.
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Thank you 🙂 Yeah, the same thing happened to me as well! Oh, I’ve seen people linking to the About page but for some reason that doesn’t work for mine and I don’t get notifications when someone has linked to my About page! It’s so weird I need to check if I have pingbacks disabled for Pages or something! Thanks for the info though! ❤
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Wonderful post! I would add: For those that do not use the WordPress platform, set up Google Alerts for the name of your blog. This will ping you when another blog or article mentions you. Also, don’t forget to share in social and tag the bloggers username if they are active on that particular social media platform 🙂
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Thanks! Oh, I didn’t know about that! Thanks a lot for letting me know! And yes, sharing on social media ensures that someone will see it! 😀
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Very helpful and easy to understand! I needed this because I’m currently working on an award post that I was tagged in 😛 Will a pingback work if you use the link to their about page?
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Never mind, I just turned on the feature to allow pingbacks on my About page from the instructions you gave :))
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Ah that’s great! I think I still need to do that too for my own About page! 😛
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Yay thank you! And I think so! Some people have commented saying that they link to the About page and I believe it should work! 😀
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This is really helpful, Jackie! Now I know that I’m doing things wrong. 😁
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I’m glad you think so and that I could help! 😛
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Woman, this is awesome. Thank you. I see pingbacks, look at them, but couldn’t for the life of me figure out how to do it myself. I was linking to the blogger’s main page! Now I feel like a jerk.
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YAY I’m so glad I could help! And don’t worry, I used to do that too until I figured out why nobody was noticing my tags! 😀
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Thanks for this! Super helpful! I always saw my site as a link in someone’s post but I was never notified of it. Now I know why!
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You’re welcome! Happy to help 🙂
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Thank you! I have had to ask a few times because I would tag people or nominate people for things but was really confused on the pingback. I think I got the hang of it the other day or so but this is always nice to go back to 🙂 Great post! Note: that GIF is on point! I laughed so hard!
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You’re welcome! And yes, I felt the same way!
Thank you and I KNOW RIGHT? The moment I saw it I just knew I had to include it in this post 😀 😀
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This is super helpful! Thanks for writing this! 😀
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Yay you’re very welcome! 🙂
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Good to know!
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😇👍🏼
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Preparing for tomorrow’s shower of pings? XD I can’t remember how I actually found out how to pingback properly. I think it was by total accident. XD Wish I would have found this sooner!
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Maybe? 😉 When I first looked up pingbacks, I didn’t understand a thing but I think I’ve got the hang of it now! And I’m actually glad I shared this because a lot of people seemed to have the same problem! 😀
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This was very awesome and super easy thanks to your help!!! Awesome blog :*
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Thank you! I’m glad I could help 🙂
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Yes!!! Pingbacks are suuuper important and bloggers just don’t appreciate them enough hahaha
Maybe after this post they’ll know how to tag properly so no one will miss their mentions ever again 😊
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Haha, that’s so true Sophie! I really hope a lot of people will read this and remember this for the future! It will make all of our lives easier! 😛
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THANK YOU FOR THIS! It’s so annoying when I get tagged for something or if someone mentions my blog in their post but there wouldn’t have been a way for me to see it if I hadn’t already followed their blog and read the post.
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You’re welcome!!! 😀 Yes, I found it to be really annoying lately! There might be people that I don’t follow that have mentioned my blog in their posts but I’ll never know if they don’t pingback!
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Great post. I had to have someone explain this to me when I first started out blogging.
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Thank you! I wish I had someone to explain it to me when I first started! 😀
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Yeah some of the stuff you can do on WordPress is pretty difficult. I have had someone explain several different things to me because I couldn’t figure it out on my own.
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There should be a WordPress group for beginners where everyone can just ask questions and help each other out when there’s a problem!
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Yes that would be so helpful!
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Somebody better make that a thing! 😀
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Very informative post! When I tag someone I always link it to the bloggers about page and most of the bloggers use this method. If you look at my about page you can find lots of pingbacks in the comments section. Whenever I’m in a mood to do a book tag I check out my about page. 🙂
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Thank you! And right, that is also a way to do it! For some reason though, I don’t get pingbacks for my pages which is weird! I need to ask WordPress support if there’s a way to fix that! It must be so much easier to just go to your About page and pick a tag! 😀
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Wow thank you so much!! I haven’t done any tags yet or anything but this is useful info!!
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You’re very welcome, I’m glad I could help! I wish I had someone to explain this to me when I first started blogging 😀
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Oh YAS. Pingbacks are what I realized that I needed to do when tagging people lol. And if you have your “about” page set for pingbacks (or the whole blog), you can link to their about page as well!
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Everyone keeps telling me that but I’ve recently been tagged and they linked to my About page but I did not get a notification and it didn’t show up in my About page :OOOO
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Hmm, that’s weird! Did you turn on pingbacks for that page or nah?
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Oh jeez, here I am preaching about the power of pingbacks but they were disabled on my About page. OH MAN! I fixed it now! 😛
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XDD Oh, Jackie! 😛 Glad I helped though! 🙂
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Hahaha, what would I do without you May?!?! 😂😝
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What WOULD you do, Jackie??? XD
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Probably sit in a corner and cry 😛
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Me too. XD
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We could be twins 😂
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We really could 😛
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Great post! I always get tagged for things without getting a pingback which is really annoying because I rarely ever realize it. And then I feel bad because i don’t want people to think I’m purposely ignoring them. I wish someone had explained it to me like this at first when I started blogging. it took me a couple of tries to get it right but I always do it now. Super informative post!
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Thank you! Yes, the same thing always happens to me so I thought I’d expain it to all the people who don’t know about pingbacks and hopefully this won’t happen anymore! Thank you 🙂
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It makes so much sense now why no one I tagged in a meme post didn’t do the meme haha. Thanks for this!!
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Hahaha, I used to feel the same way! 😂 but you’re welcome, I’m glad I could help!
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Thank you!! This is a very clear write up of how to do a pingback!
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You’re very welcome! I’m glad I could help!
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Great post, Jackie! I agree, it’s so annoying when you aren’t notified for a tag just because the other blogger didn’t pingback your blog!☺️
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Thank you! 😀 Yes, that’s true! That’s why I thought I should share the art of pingbacks with everyone to make all our lives easier :’)
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Informative post! Thanks 🙂
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Thank you! 🙂
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Ahhh Jackie this is such a great post!! SO NEEDED ahah I feel like a lot of people are oblivious to pingbacks but they’re actually so important and useful so thank you for this informative post! ❤
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THANKS ANALEE! I know right, I’m so glad I found out about pingbacks and I just felt the need to share 💜 thank you!
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This is great advice! I think you’re right that a lot of people don’t realize that people don’t get a notification when their blog url (not a post) is used. I’ve always known this, but for some reason I STILL don’t always do a pingback if I don’t have a specific post I’m referring to. I don’t know why, but it didn’t occur to me to just use their latest. LOL!
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Thank you 💜 Yes, you’re right, I always used the blog URL and never realised it! I always make sure to use the latest post or if someone has pingbacks turned on for their About page, I just link back to that! ☺️
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This is an AWESOME POST, and exactly what I needed!
I do have a question though – what’s the difference between a trackback and a pingback? Thanks! Amazing post!
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Thank you so much! And from what I understand, trackbacks basically have the same function as a pingback – to notify you when someone has mentioned you in a post – but they need to be added manually! But why add trackbacks manually when you can just pingback and it automatically sends a notification to someone right? 😉
Unless you want to tag someone outside of WordPress! Then it’d probably be wise to learn how to use trackbacks! (I don’t plan to do that any time soon though because it seems complicated XD) Hope I could help ❤
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Very useful, thanks for that I learned a lot.
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Thank you and you’re welcome 🙂
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ahh super helpful thank you!
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Yay I’m glad to hear that! 😊
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Such a useful post. You saved my sanity. Thank you!
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Happy to hear that! You’re welcome!
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