Webmention-faq - IndieWeb
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The
Webmention FAQ
is for documenting frequently asked questions about
Webmention
and their answers.
Infrequently asked questions may be collected in
Resolved Discussions
FAQ
Are Webmentions like Pingbacks
Short answer: No, Webmentions are not like Pingbacks. Webmentions are like
comments
and
notifications
Longer: No, Webmentions power existing user-centric features like comments, likes, notifications etc. across websites, while Pingback (perhaps unintentionally) created a new (and ugly) user-feature "Pingback" which was more confusing than helpful. Under the covers, Webmention is a much simpler, cleaner, and more secure protocol than Pingback despite having some structural similarities.
Do webmentions work only when both sites use webmentions?
Webmentions start working as soon as a site supports receiving webmentions (and, optionally, displaying them), and someone (anyone) sends them a webmention from another site that links to the receiving site.
Webmentions work better when the sending site both supports
microformats2
and automatically sends webmentions. That is, when site A (the sender) publishes a post that links to site B (the receiver) which can receive webmentions, site A should automatically send a webmention to site B. This immediately notifies site B, which can then parse site A’s post for key information from its microformats (such as comment content, author name and icon. The receiver (site B) can then decide whether to display a comment (or other
response
) and how to present it.
Webmentions work best when both sites support
microformats2
and also sending and receiving webmentions. With this in place, both sites can comment back and forth in real time, similar to social networks like Twitter.
Here are the minimum requirements for a webmention to work well:
The sending website should mark up its
response
posts with
microformats2
The sending website should include a link to the receiving website.
The receiving website should have a webmention endpoint (either its own endpoint or delegated to a hosted webmention receiving service like
webmention.io
).
The sending website should automatically detect that endpoint and send the webmention.
How do you know if a website uses webmentions?
You can't know if a website sends webmentions, but you can find out if a website receives webmentions. This is done by looking for rel="webmention" attached to either an HTTP Link Header, an HTML link in the document head or on a hyperlink on the page. If any of those three items are found with a rel="webmention" attribute then the site has declared that it has an endpoint for receiving webmentions.
Webmention software does this automatically. As a quick practical check, in most browsers you can right click and choose
view source
for the particular web page and then search for "webmention" to find something along the lines of

. Or more simply, you can use the
omnibear
browser extension's reply popup for a webmention icon.
There are also a few options for visually indicating that a site accepts webmentions, though looking the endpoint as described above is more certain.
Providing an input box (in their comment section, on a custom page, or both) for others to submit a URL that mentions their post. This is particularly useful for those who would like to reply, but don't have a way of automatically sending a Webmention.
Display an
I ❤️ Webmentions
or
Webmentions accepted ✅
badge or button
on the page. See
buttons brainstorming
for ideas.
How do I find others' sites that support Webmention?
See
IndieWeb Examples
for a list of sites
You can find others by browsing through
Bridgy
users (
), the vast majority of whom will support it as will users of
Micro.blog
or other IndieWeb
friendly
services.
Another good source of
discovery
is the
indiewebring
Many, but not all, of the wiki users at
chat-names
will support Webmention.
indie map
documentation and work will also contain a number of sites that support Webmention; for example try links here:
Most users of
have sites that support webmention (though one can use it without it)
If you want to meet some in person, we’d welcome you to join one of our virtual meetups coming up:
Some users maintain lists:
keeps a list of people who have IndieWeb sites and most (though not all) will support Webmentions:
Most under the IndieWeb and some under the IndieWeb for Education and Blogger headings will support webmentions.
If I write an article that links to another article and both websites support webmentions, does it notify the other website automatically?
It depends on the webmention support in your (sending) website. Some sending websites have automatic webmention sending and others use services like
Telegraph
to send webmentions manually.
If your site supports automatic webmention sending, then there is nothing else you need to do. Unless you are using your own custom code, sites on
micro.blog
or
Known
and
WordPress
sites that use the
WordPress Webmention Plugin
will automatically send webmentions.
It has become somewhat common for sites that accept incoming webmentions to have a URL box in their comments section to allow people whose own sites do send webmentions to manually input the URL of their response. The receiving site then checks the input to ensure that the page was indeed mentioned before accepting the webmention.
Keep in mind that many sites that do accept mentions do not necessarily display them, while others may moderate comments and webmentions before displaying them.
I am not a programmer, so if I want to set up webmention on a website is something like webmention.io the best way to set it up?
There are many ways in which this could potentially be done. It depends primarily on the
CMS
or system on which your website runs. Some
projects
have webmention sending and/or receiving built into them (eg:
micro.blog
and
Known
). Others, like
WordPress
Perch
, and
Drupal
, may have plugins or modules that make it quite easy to set up to send and receive webmentions.
Your best bet is to check the details and examples at
Webmention
or take a look at the page(s) related to your particular CMS. A
list of supported publishing software
is on the wiki. Some platforms will be easier or more difficult to set up depending on the software currently available. Some platforms may be better than others for using
third party services
like
webmention.io
If your particular platform doesn't support webmention technology, you could contact the developers and request support for it.
How do webmentions work with social media sites like Twitter?
Most popular social media sites, like Twitter, don't support webmentions. To deal with the lack of webmention support, many people use the
backfeed
approach. Services like
bridgy
watch social media posts using their proprietary APIs. If you have syndicated a post from your site to Twitter (
POSSE
) and someone responds there, brid.gy will send a webmention from the silo back to your original post.
Developer Questions
What is the canonical URL for the Webmention spec
Webmention is a W3C spec and lives at
Why webmention instead of pingback
Webmention is simpler & more reliable than Pingback, more thoroughly specified (e.g. explicit support for updates & deletes), and designed specifically to support rich social web interactions such as cross-site comments, likes, reposts, RSVPs, and more.
Webmentions are:
Simpler
. By dropping XML-RPC, webmention is simpler than Pingback. This means:
Less work to implement
Easier to test
Both of which combine to enable
more reliable, interoperable implementations, sooner
Re-using only HTTP enables easier testing and UI
. By using only HTTP, it's possible to construct
simple HTML forms that exercise the protocol
, which is a good design principle for web protocols in general
[1]
. This enables simpler/easier testing (with just a static HTML file), and the ability to provide simple (no JS needed) webmention submit forms on blog posts for others to paste URLs to their replies (some IndieWeb participants are already doing this, e.g.
and
posts).
Why webmention instead of Trackback
Main article:
Trackback
Trackback, lacking link verification, is more easily and heavily spammed
Plus all the reasons
why webmention instead of pingback
Which links should webmentions be sent to
Which links in a
post
should webmentions be sent to?
Webmentions should be sent to all URLs a post can be considered to mention — this includes
in-reply-to
URL(s)
rsvp
URLs
URLs linked to in the content, including URLs of people mentioned
What do existing implementations do?
Telegraph
- attempts to send webmentions to every URL in the parsed Microformats h-entry, including in-reply-to, photo URLs, as well as URLs in the HTML of the post content
Waterpigs.co.uk - I send
pingbacks
(webmentions coming soon) to the in-reply-to URL if set, and all URLs in the post content field. --
Waterpigs.co.uk
09:14, 10 April 2013 (PDT)
Should webmentions be sent for links to static assets
Should webmentions be sent for links to static asset URLs e.g. images, audio?
What do existing implementations do?
Taproot
sends webmentions to all URLs in a post without discriminating by type of link --
Barnaby Walters
09:01, 26 November 2013 (PST)
stapibas
sends linkbacks to all URLs, independent of their type --
User:Cweiske.de
Should webmentions be sent for embeds
Should webmentions be sent for resources embedded in a post like the URLs in "src" and "data" attributes?