In recent months, it appears that a number of bloggers will not publish a trackback even though it appears that it was received. This isn’t happening with all bloggers, of course, but your point about mutuality of linking seems to be ignored more and more. It seems there are some non-newbie bloggers who enjoy having an incoming link, but who refuse to allow an outgoing link. This then breaks pointing to similar or related content.

As my post above stated, there are some bloggers who don’t have trackbacks active, but if they do have trackback links visible, one would tend to believe they’re visible specifically for trackbacking by other bloggers. If the posting by a trackback requester follows the custom of “so and so said:” followed by a blockquote, and then offering further commentary on that blockquote, why then wouldn’t those trackback receivers publish them when they get one that isn’t from a spam source?

Why this is increasingly occurring is curious. Perhaps it is fallout from the spam problem, poor spam tools, perhaps it is something else. One blogger that I queried claimed their server never received it, yet, if that was the case, then the sending blog’s software would not have indicated a good trackback in administration or the backend user’s control panel. I believe the receiving server sends a “1″ if it received the trackback.

Since it seems to be occurring with non-newbie bloggers, then perhaps it is a phenomenon of a maturing tool and its related use.

If I write “Ken Klaser wrote X…” then a TB is appropriate. If I write “[Update: Ken Klaser wrote X"], then I think a TB is appropriate. To me the core is mutuality of linking; if you don’t link to me, but want my blog to link to you, that annoys me. Is that clearer?

Adam