WordPress parent company Automattic has bought the blo.gs pinging and blog trackback service from Yahoo. Financial details weren’t disclosed, but Automattic CEO Toni Schneider said the deal-making process was “refreshingly quick.” Aside from feature upgrades, Automattic will make minimal changes to the way blo.gs operates (via Matt Mullenweg).

SEE ALSO: Yahoo’s Shopping Spree Includes Ping Service Blo.gs

Yahoo bought blo.gs back in 2005. At the time, it tracked over 8 million blogs and was one of only a few “ping” services; now ping aggregators like Ping-o-Matic, open ping servers like Weblogs.com and even Google let bloggers sign up for pinging to alert search engines and readers when new content gets posted. And there’s a glut of blog content out there—the WSJ reports that there are more than 20 million bloggers in the U.S. today, 2 million of whom are actually profiting from their posts.

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