Should I disable track backs?

[jmansd]

All the trackbacks I get on wordpress sites are spam.  How would disabling trackbacks effect my SEO efforts.

[AlanBleiweiss]

You should set your WordPress to require moderator approval on first comments, and any comment with a link in it.  That way all trackbacks will be stopped at the gate.  You'll need to go through them though if you want to see if anyone ever links back - it's a good thing to know.

However if you're overwhelmed by them, go ahead and just shut them down.  Real links back will still exist when they're created, and you'll still get the inbound link value.

[EGOL]

I agree with Alan, we have shut down trackbacks.  Spammers!

[Doc_Sheldon]

If you want to keep trackbacks enabled, but don't want to deal with the spammers, another option is Simple Trackback Validation with Topsy Blocker ( http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/simple-trackback-validation-with-topsy-blocker/ ).  That plugin will stop 95-99% of spam trackbacks by comparing the IP addresses. As Alan says, it's nice to know right away when you get a new link.

[YesThatDanGreen]

I've done as you suggested.

I came across the issue after running a report that showed 40 links with 302 status-all turned out to be trackbacks.

While the above advice takes care of the future, is there any harm in having these existing 302 trackbacks, or any advantage in making them 301s?

Thank you,

Dan