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Webmention is a W3C recommendation that describes a simple protocol to notify any URL when a website links to it, and for web pages to request notifications when somebody links to them.[1] Webmention enables authors to keep track of who is linking to, referring to, or commenting on their articles. By incorporating such comments from other sites, sites themselves provide federated commenting functionality.[2]

History

Webmention was originally developed within the IndieWebCamp community, a group of independent developers who build personal websites linked by open standards as an alternative to centralized social media platforms.[3][4] The protocol was published as a W3C working draft on January 12, 2016,[5] and reached recommendation status on January 12, 2017.[1][6] At the time it became a recommendation, the specification was accompanied by reports of more than a dozen interoperable implementations tested against an open test suite.[7]

Protocol

Similar to pingback, Webmention is one of four types of linkbacks.[8] It was designed to be simpler than the XML-RPC protocol that pingback relies upon, by instead using only HTTP and x-www-urlencoded content.[3][1] Beyond previous linkback protocols, Webmention also specifies protocol details for when a page that is the source of a link is deleted, or updated with new links or removal of existing links.[1]

See also

  • Pingback, the XML-RPC based protocol that Webmention was modeled after.
  • Refback, a similar protocol but easier than Pingbacks since the site originating the link doesn’t have to be capable of sending a Pingback request.
  • Trackback, a similar protocol but more prone to Sping (Trackback spam) since there is no authentication or verification possible with Trackbacks.

References

  1. ^ a b c d Parecki, Aaron, ed. (January 12, 2017). “Webmention”. W3C. Retrieved October 26, 2017.
  2. ^ “Social Web Protocols”. W3C. December 7, 2017. Retrieved May 29, 2026.
  3. ^ a b “Webmention”. IndieWebCamp. Retrieved October 26, 2017.
  4. ^ Jamieson, Jack (2022). “Bridging the Open Web and APIs: Alternative Social Media Alongside the Corporate Web”. Social Media + Society. 8 (1). doi:10.1177/20563051221077032.
  5. ^ “First Public Working Drafts: Webmention; Social Web Protocols”. W3C News. January 12, 2016.
  6. ^ “Webmention is a W3C Recommendation”. W3C News. January 12, 2017.
  7. ^ Çelik, Tantek (January 12, 2023). “Six years of Webmention as a W3C Recommendation”. tantek.com. Retrieved May 29, 2026.
  8. ^ “Understanding Backlinks and Linkbacks”. WBJournal. Retrieved 2026-06-02.