I've heard talk about pinging here, but can someone explain to me exactly what it is and how it works? Surely you're not talking about pinging something using the ping command, right?
Thanks for the link. So basically pinging a piece of content on a blog will send it to a bunch of blog search engines, which will then index and link to the content?
Yeah, basically it just tells them that you have updated the site, then they update their database... Thats what I think it means, anyway!
A while back, I wrote a short article about it when I was learning about what it means to ping. I'll paste it here for you: Pinging Your Blog – The 5 “Ws†and the “H?†What does it mean to Blog and Ping? Sounds like a grammar school game, doesn't it? Well, after some research, I can now say that I have a fairly good understanding about not only what Pinging means, but also the When, Where, Why and How of Pinging your blog. Oh, and don’t forget the Who! So, here is what I came up with: 1. What is Pinging? In 2004, Priyah Shah, a partner in the search engine marketing firm, SEO & More, wrote an article about blogging that gave me some insight. She wrote, "There are a number of services designed specifically for tracking and connecting blogs. By sending a small ping to each service you let them know you've updated your blog so they can come check you out.†I think that is one of the simplest explanations I have found, so now I share it with you. 2. That obviously answers the questions, “Who should Ping†and “Why should you Ping?†This blog focuses on making money blogging, so do you want to make money? Do you want to increase traffic to your site so that your advertisements can be seen? Do you want your Google Adsense advertisements to be clicked? If you are like me then you want all of these things. Therefore, you should Ping your Blog! 3. When should you ping? To answer that question, first did you know that it was possible to “spam ping?†Well, it is. Spam pinging is pinging your blog(s) many times a day for weeks and weeks just to get traffic to your site. On top of that, it is pinging without updating your blog(s). Do not do this! It will not help your blog get traffic in the long run and in fact, can hurt your blog stats since many sites you ping to can decide to delete you from their list. It can also hurt others who are trying to get traffic to their sites this way since the ping sites are flooded by spam pingers. Those thoughts are important since they give the final answer to the question about when is a good time to ping. It is understood by the blog community at large that pinging should be done no more than 2-3 times a day, if that. Most importantly, you should only ping your blog when you have added a fresh post or made significant changes to an old post or your blog site as a whole. 4. Where should you ping your blog and How? In order to intelligently write this article, I had to experience what pinging was for myself. Is it difficult? How the heck is it done? You will be happy to know that it is so easy! I found a site that allows you to ping your blog many times over just by filling in your URL, clicking a button and then 1-2-3 your blog is pinged instantly! How do you like that - a single click. Impressive right? Now if I were you, I would want to know where to find this site. I won’t keep you guessing. It is Pingomatic.com. Of course, there are many other sites that you can ping your blog to and I’ll list them in another post, but this is one of the best ping sites out there and it is also recommended by the best. So what are you waiting for? You are now educated on the 5 “Ws†and the “H,†so GO FOR IT! Hope that helps. Liz