What is Ping and How to Use It?

What is Ping and How to Ping?
Blog ping is in simple words process of letting search engines (and blog directories, aggregators, rss lists etc…) know that you have updated your blog. Ping is like a signal that is sent from your blog to search engine, signal that carries information of your blog (blog name, url, new post info or what post is edited/updated, etc) and when search engine receives ping signal it will send spiders to visit your blog and add new content into search engine database.

There are two ways to send ping – Automatic and Manual.
Most of today’s blog platforms (like Wordpress for example) have automatic pinging option included, but for those that doesn’t there are free public services for sending pings (like Pingomatic.com).

Manual Pinging is done by manually visiting ping service like Ping-O-Matic or Pingoat filling form where you type in your blog info (Blog name, blog url and rss feed url of your blog), then you choose list of sites to ping and click Send Pings button.

Automatic pinging is done by adding list of pinging services into your blog’s admin panel. This is different from script to script but what you need to do is to add list of urls into box with pinging services. Then when new post is added on your blog script will send ping to each site from your list. Here’s list of several most popular pinging services:

BulkFeeds - http://bulkfeeds.net/rpc
FeedBurner - http://ping.feedburner.com/
Google Blog Search - http://blogsearch.google.com/ping/RPC2
IceRocket - http://rpc.icerocket.com:10080/
Technorati - http://rpc.technorati.com/rpc/ping
Yahoo - http://api.my.yahoo.com/rss/ping
BlogBlogs - http://api.blogblogs.com.br/api/ping

NOTE: Do not open these urls in your browser since they probably won’t display properly.

Pinging With FeedBurner
There’s service called FeedBurner and we’ll use that one for our splogs. Why FeedBurner – because it has many good options that regular rss feeds don’t have and also it’s better then manual pinging. Let’s start…

First go to FeedBurner web site to register free account. Click on Register link to get signup form. Fill all fields in form as required, use real email address (not free one like yahoo, gmail, hotmail etc), think of your security question and answer (it might be good idea to write them somewhere in case you forget it later) and when all is done click on Sign In button.

Next step is adding RSS feed of your blog to FeedBurner. It’s simple, there’s box where you should add rss feed url… RSS url of your blog should be inside your footer (by default in Wordpress) or somewhere in sidebar… Copy/Paste that url into FeedBurner box and click Next (leave I am a Podcaster unchecked).

Now we’re in new window where we’ll add Title and address of our FeedBurner feed. Title should be same or related to title of your blog, feed address too but you might need some time to get available one with good name. After it’s done click Activate Feed button. Click Next… And once again click Next.

Next step is adding useful options to your FeedBurner feed. Click on Optimize tab in top menu for start. Click on Smart Feed item in left menu and on that page click Activate. This will give your feed most compatibility that’s good – more compatibility = more potential audience for your blog.

Now click on Publicize link in top menu and then on Ping Shot in left menu. New window will open… First click Activate button and when it’s don select boxes next to Google Blog Search Pinging Service and Ping-O-Matic. Also under that you can add up to 5 more pinging services of your choice. When all is done click Save. Ping Shot will do all pinging related job for you so from now on you don’t have to think about pinging anymore. Do this process for each blog you open…

Next we need to do is to click on FeedCount in left menu. This will display number of readers who are subscribed to your feed on your blog. First select if you want static or animated button and color. Then copy code and add it to your blog template’s sidebar for example (requires some html/php knowledge).

There are more options in FeedBurner, you can check them out on your own… I explained only the most important and most used ones.

Don’t Ping Spam
Ping spam is sending multiple pings for one same post to the same pinging service, or sending new pings for blogs/posts that are not updated at all. Be careful since this can hurt you and your blog.
Follow the golden rule: “1 Post – 1 Ping” and you’ll be just fine…

More free tips and tools for webmasters at Bloooe.com