Here’s the way trackback works. Let’s say two people have a blog.  They read each other’s blogs, so quite often they write about what the other person is saying.  But that’s not a conversation – it’s two people talking in seperate towns to their own friends.

What you want to be able to do is talk to your friends, and the other blogger and her friends all at the same time.  That’s where trackback comes in.

In order to use trackback, you have two options.  Get blogging software that has it, or get an add-on that will allow you to have it (I recommend haloscan).  Your blogging friend also needs trackback.

Once you have trackback, here’s what you do. When you write a post that’s about someone else’s post, or you quote from someone, and so on, you send that other block a “trackback ping”.  Then, similar to a comment, an excerpt from your post will show up under their post.  Some blog software, such as WordPress, sends a ping automatically.  Now the other blogger’s visitors will see your post summary, and come and visit your site (because they can only see a portion of the post on the other site).  Now you’ve made new friends!  Right on!

Here are some missionary blogs that use trackback:

• Mission Safari
• A Foreign Life
• Bergquist’s In Brazil
• Newmans Surfacing
• Jungle Pop