So I have noticed trackback spam is much heavier on the weekends. This weekend some kind souls have been promoting bestiality and hentai in my trackback section for me. I always wonder why there is the need to promote those types of topics, when it is just as easy to be relevant (but then again there probably are not too many hentai bestiality bloggers, and I can't see why a person would want to market anything else).
I just got an email from a guy named Jim promoting a free tool called Trackback Search. I have not yet asked how the database was created and the like, but am emailing him right now.
Most people using a tool such as Trackback Search would probably use it to create low quality automated spam, but there are probably good ways to use it, Technorati, BlogPulse, PubSub, Feedster, Blogdex, Daypop, and many of the other tools to help find useful blog type content to cite in meaningful ways.
Interesting to see free automated tools building topical relevance into their systems. Having looked at a number of searches it appears as though the topical relevancy is not perfect, but it does return many relevant sites, and most of them are from rather new posts.
The nice thing about a tool like Trackback Search is that it automates part of the research process, but still allow you to manually write posts, and manually integrate the data such that the people you are referencing do not see you as a dirty trackback spammer (like the hentai and bestiality people are).
Tools are tools, and I always adovcate looking at your long term goals and the potential outcome of using any tool prior to using it.
Even if search engines did not count the trackback linkage data trackbacks could still be a great way to help integrate yourself into a topical community, but you don't want to do it in a manner to where experts on your topic are hating you unless you are creating a crash and burn site.
As time passes more and more tools and sites will continue to blur the line between spam and useful remixing.
