What is a permalink?

11 February 2009

Permalink is short for permanent link.

It is a link that isn't going to change, even when the blog entry is archived.

For example, on this blog there is 4 ways to see blog entries

The last 3 entries written are shown on the main blog page
When selecting a year it will show every entry from that year
When selecting a month it will show every entry from that year in that month
And when selecting a blog it will show just that blog along with that blog's comments and trackbacks.

Every place where the blog can be seen all have the permalink link where the blog can always be linked to.

Having a permalink ensures that search engines won't find broken links to blog entries.

Trackback links are quite similar. Trackback URLs do refer to the permalink, but going to the trackback URL won't display the blog entry.

On the trackback URL is where the ping is recieved from other websites, checks for spam and then responds to the originating website of the ping to say that either the ping was successful, or that the ping failed.

http://www.peternichol.com/entry/trackback/19/

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