They always looked kind of spammy to me. I understand that's not the case at all, and now that I switched from Blogger to WordPress, I can see how useful they are to get. But I don't think they're so helpful for readers.

It's just a snippet of text that's usually from your post repeated down as comment #3. Or 1% of what someone put in a forum post. Just a bunch of blah blah blah in general.

OTOH, I wonder if they help make your blog look more popular, which makes people more likely to comment and come back to visit again? Like how you're supposed to turn comments off with new blogs until you have enough interested readers to leave enough comments to be communal, you know, carry on the conversation?

Is that what those are called?

I've just finally noticed them on some blogs and was wondering why the blog owner would allow just replies to posts. IMO it looks unprofessional and I don't look at the comments section to read what I just read in the entry itself.

Glad someone else agrees! Last time I asked a web design question, everyone thought I lost my mind.

John I approve most of them. If you don't want them just turn trackbacks off on your posts, but keep in mind you'll like when you link to another blog that gives you a trackback and karma is a good thing.

Also know if you allow trackbacks you might have a better chance of getting others to link to you.

Bery Bery Interrresting!

I knew I must be missing out on something, because so many blogs run by people who know more than I do show them. I always got minorly annoyed, but you've just made me think about the situation in a different way. I don't know if that's a good thing or a bad thing, but now I see the perspective of a blog owner and not just that of a reader. Part SEO, and as Adam would say, part anti-SEO.

I know what you mean about the way they look. At times they can look pretty ugly. when I link to my own posts it leaves a trackback, which makes no sense so I've taken to deleting those.

I figure if someone links to me then it's ok to let them have the trackback. And often the other person is adding to the conversation I started so I think it does add value. Depending on what they say I'll sometimes visit their post and leave a comment thanking them.

Not every blog has trackbacks active though. There are plenty that don't.

John the more you blog the more you start to see life as a blog post. You'll be living your life and something will happen and your first thought will be that it would make a good post.

Originally Posted by vangogh

John the more you blog the more you start to see life as a blog post. You'll be living your life and something will happen and your first thought will be that it would make a good post.

I think that's starting to happen. Someone made a highly suspicious post over in the coding forums, and it became my latest blog post, Spam Pie with C.R.E.A.M.

That brings up an unrelated question. Is it blasphemy to quote the Bible and Wu-Tang in the same paragraph? Or just clever?

I vote clever.

I get a lot of post ideas from here too. People ask questions and I want to answer. I usually answer here, but sometimes I answer on my blog.

By the way John I just read your blog post and that was nice how you got both those quotes in. I'm keeping to my vote of clever. Besides to quote Bob Dylan from "It's alright ma I'm only bleeding"

"It's easy to see without looking to far not much is really sacred."