Tag: Trackbacks

I’ve written recently and with much frustration of the disappearance of trackbacks from my site.

At first, I erroneously attributed this problem to my theme’s omission of the trackback RDF and URL codes. After adding both codes to the Journalist theme, it seemed that trackbacks had returned, but I soon realized that the links were only intermittently appearing.

Then, in the process of upgrading my site to the latest version of WordPress, I identified the true reason for my missing trackbacks. As part of the upgrade, I eliminated a few redundant plugins, including WP Captcha-Free. This plugin, which claims that it won’t block pingbacks or trackbacks, did just that.

I can confidently attribute the cause of this mystery to WP Captcha-Free because trackbacks from uberVU and Topsy once again appear in the IntenseDebate moderation queue.

After a month of confusion and consternation, I can happily report that I’ve resolved the mystery of the missing trackbacks.

On Friday, I wrote about the mysterious disappearance of trackbacks from my site. At the time, I believed I’d solved the problem by adding the trackback RDF and URL codes to my theme, as neither is included in the original design.

Now, I’m noticing that trackbacks still aren’t appearing. So, the mystery continues.

Has anyone else encountered this problem with the Journalist theme, or any other theme for that matter? If so, were you able to resolve this issue, and how did you resurrect your trackbacks?

A few weeks ago, I switched my site’s design from the Carrington framework to Lucian Marin’s Journalist theme. While I liked the visual design of the Carrington framework, it includes many features I never used. These options, in part due to problems with my host, were slowing my site down considerably. In an attempt to reduce the errors my blog generated, I switched to the Journalist theme for its lightweight coding and clean, yet appealing, design.

Shortly after making the switch, I began to notice that trackbacks weren’t appearing on my posts. At first, I assumed that the ongoing problems with my host were to blame, but since these issues have been largely resolved, I began to wonder if something else was amiss. As I discovered yesterday, the Journalist theme does not include either the trackback RDF code or trackback URLs. With the addition of one line of code, however, trackbacks are once again appearing on my posts.

If you’ve noticed the same problem with your WordPress theme, adding <!-- <?php trackback_rdf(); ?> --> to your theme’s index.php, page.php, and single.php files (just before the <?php endforeach; else: ?> line) will solve the problem. I recommend adding a trackback link, using the <a rel="trackback" href="<?php trackback_url(); ?>"><?php trackback_url(); ?></a> code as well, to ensure compatibility with the widest variety of sites.