Webmention Explained

Webmention
Status:	W3C Recommendation
Organization:	World Wide Web Consortium
Editors:	Aaron Parecki
Base Standards:	HTTP, URI
Related Standards:	Microformats, h-entry
Domain:	Social web, communications protocol

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 was originally developed in the IndieWebCamp community^[2] and published as a W3C working draft on January 12, 2016.^[3] As of January 12, 2017 it is a W3C recommendation.^[4] 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.

Similar to pingback, Webmention is one of four types of linkbacks, but was designed to be simpler than the XML-RPC protocol that pingback relies upon, by instead only using HTTP and x-www-urlencoded content. 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.

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.

Notes and References

1. Web site: Webmention . Parecki . Aaron . January 12, 2017 . . October 26, 2017.
2. Web site: Webmention . . October 26, 2017.
3. Web site: First Public Working Drafts: Webmention; Social Web Protocols . January 12, 2016 . W3C News.
4. Web site: Webmention is a W3C Recommendation . January 12, 2017 . W3C News.