How to turn pingbacks and trackbacks on or off in WordPress

What are pingbacks and trackbacks?

Both are ways for websites to tell each other about links. Imagine you write a post and link to a friend's post. A pingback sends your friend's site an automatic note: "Someone linked to you." WordPress then often shows that note as a comment under the friend's post.

A trackback does the same job, but you send the note by hand. Pingbacks are automatic. Trackbacks are manual.

These notes are useful for getting noticed. But spammers also abuse them to fill your comments with junk links. Many site owners turn them off for that reason.

Steps: change it for the whole site

1. Log in to your WordPress dashboard.
2. Go to Settings, then Discussion.
3. Find the section called Default post settings.
4. To turn them on, tick Attempt to notify any blogs linked to from the post and tick Allow link notifications from other blogs (pingbacks and trackbacks) on new posts.
5. To turn them off, untick both boxes.
6. Scroll down and click Save Changes.

This setting only affects new posts you write from now on. Your old posts keep their old setting.

Steps: change it for old posts

You can change many old posts in one go. Take a backup first, since you are editing many posts at once.

1. Go to Posts, then All Posts.
2. Tick the box at the top of the list to pick all posts on the page. If you have many posts, set a higher number under Screen Options at the top.
3. In the Bulk actions menu, choose Edit and click Apply.
4. Find the Pings drop-down.
5. Choose Do not allow to turn them off, or Allow to turn them on.
6. Click Update.

Steps: change it for one post

1. Open the post in the editor.
2. In the settings sidebar, find the Discussion panel.
3. Tick or untick Allow pingbacks & trackbacks.
4. Click Update.

If you do not see the Discussion panel, open the three-dot menu at the top right, choose Preferences, and turn the Discussion panel on.

Quick recap

• A pingback is an automatic note that a site links to another. A trackback is the same, sent by hand.
• Use Settings then Discussion to switch them for new posts.
• Use bulk edit to change old posts.
• Use the Discussion panel in the editor for a single post.