WordPress Pingbacks: What They Are and How to Disable Them

You start a blog, and once your blog starts growing, you will see notifications called “pingbacks” showing up in your WordPress dashboard. You may not know what a pingback is, but they’re annoying.

So, what exactly is a WordPress pingback, and how should you handle them?

In this article, we’ll cover everything that you need to know about WordPress pingbacks:

• What pingbacks are
• How pingbacks work
• How to disable WordPress pingbacks

Let’s get started.

What is a WordPress Pingback?

A WordPress pingback is an automated notification sent to other WordPress sites when you link to their content. This notification appears as a comment on the linked post, similar to a social media mention. Unlike comments, WordPress automatically generates pingbacks.

Pingbacks can also occur within your own site for internally linked posts (but this can be disabled).

How Do WordPress Pingbacks Work?

WordPress pinbacks work automatically when your and other WordPress website’s pingbacks are enabled by default.

Pingbacks will appear in two ways, depending on whether someone else linked to your WordPress site or whether you linked to someone else’s WordPress site.

How Do Pingbacks Work When Someone Else Links to Your Site

A pingback is automatically generated when another WordPress site links to one of your posts.

This process starts when the external site publishes content that has links to your blog. WordPress, with its built-in pingback system, sends a notification to your site. This notification is essentially a request to acknowledge the link.

If you have pingbacks enabled on your site, you will receive this notification, which usually appears in the comments section of the linked post.

It serves as a digital nod, signaling to you and your readers that someone else has found your content valuable enough to link to it.

This fosters a sense of community and helps track who is engaging with your content, potentially driving more traffic to your site.

How Do Pingbacks Work When You Link to Someone Else’s WordPress Site

Similarly, when you link to another WordPress site in your content, your site sends out a pingback to that site. This is your site’s way of letting the other site know that you have linked to them.

If the other site has pingbacks enabled, they will receive a notification about your link. Once approved by the site owner, this notification may appear as a comment under the specific post you linked to.

This process helps build a network of related content and establish connections with fellow bloggers. It’s an automatic handshake in the digital world, opening doors for collaboration and mutual growth.

How to Disable WordPress Pingbacks?

Since pingbacks may be annoying, many webmasters prefer to disable WordPress pingbacks.

Depending on your preferences, you can completely disable all WordPress pingbacks. Or, you can just disable some aspects, such as turning off self-pingbacks while leaving them enabled for other sites.

How to Disable All WordPress Pingbacks

If you want to completely disable all pingbacks on your site, WordPress offers a built-in setting to do this.

Simply log in to your WordPress dashboard and then go to Settings » Discussion.

Once on the discussion page, uncheck the checkbox with the text Allow link notifications from other blogs (pingbacks and trackbacks) on new posts.

In addition, if you don’t want your site to send pingbacks to other blogs, you can also uncheck the checkbox with the text Attempt to notify any blogs linked to from the post.

How to Turn Off Pingbacks on Specific Posts

In some cases, you might want to disable pingbacks on an individual WordPress post while keeping them enabled on other posts. You can do this using the post editor.

Simply open the WordPress post for which you want to disable pingbacks.

Next, go to the Post tab from the right sidebar and expand the Discussion settings.

Now, uncheck the checkbox with the text Allow pingbacks & trackbacks.

How to Disable Self Pingbacks

WordPress sends pingbacks by default, even within your own site. For example, if you have an internal link from “x” to “y,” WordPress will send a pingback to “y” even if it is still on your own site. This might be frustrating if you have a lot of internal links.

If you use the above-mentioned methods to turn off WordPress pingbacks, these self-pingbacks will stop as well. However, there may be instances in which you want to have pingbacks enabled for other sites but disable self-pingbacks.

To do that, you can install the free No Self Pings WordPress plugin. For more, check out how to install WordPress plugins.

In addition to preventing self-pingbacks, this plugin allows you to block certain URLs from pingbacks manually.

Final Thought on Pingbacks WordPress

WordPress pingbacks are automated notifications sent between WordPress sites when one site connects to another. They work in the same manner as @ mentions or tags on social media platforms.

Pingbacks show in the comment moderation and, if approved, show in the frontend comments section.

If you do not want to use pingbacks on your site, you can disable them completely or partially.

That’s it from this article.

For more, check out these other helpful resources:

• How to Embed Video in WordPress [Quick and Easy Ways]
• What is a Slug in WordPress: Everything You Need to Know
• How to Use Yoast SEO Plugin In WordPress [Beginners Guide]
• What is a Permalink in WordPress? A Beginner Guide

Lastly, follow us on Facebook and Twitter to stay updated on the latest WordPress and blogging-related articles.