What’s a Pingback?

Okay, those of you who have been blogging for more than a year will most likely know the answer to the above question…. I’ve been blogging since March of this year, so literally, I’ve had only months of experience. The reason I mention this is because during my learning through what I lovingly call WordPress U, one of my lessons covered this very subject. Now I’m a visual learner, and I don’t get on well with written instructions. I became very frustrated with this lesson and decided to toss that exercise and do something else.  Since then I’ve been agonizing over what the heck  a “pingback” is.

Last night I was writing a post for Luna (I don’t know how to Sepll) and I was talking about one of her toys. I really didn’t feel like explaining what an E.R.D. was, so I decided to add a link to the post that explained it.

While I was in that particular post I had the brilliant idea of linking back to the current one. Previous links that I’ve added to a post never worked. It simply opened the link in the same window. So I thought I’d kill two birds with one stone and direct the reader back to the current post. (Brilliant, if I do say so… while patting myself on the back.)

Little did I know what I’d done. It only dawned on me when I opened two emails that had arrived immediately after the links being set up, from WordPress about a pingback, “New pingback waiting approval on Life With Luna”. There were two emails but each referred to the specific post that the pingback was placed in.

When I read both of those emails, a bolt of lightning hit me and I finally understood just what a pingback was. I am now feeling so relieved and no longer frustrated over that lesson.

(I also just received another email wanting me to approve another pingback that I’ve placed in this post. This means that I can continue adding post after post with links, excuse me, pingbacks, and it can become an endless cycle.)

Now, can someone tell me what a blog roll is?