Each time you update a website, especially a blog which you should be updating at least once a week, it helps to ping the site to let the rest of the Internet know that you have added new content.
However, properly pinging a blog should be restricted to only pinging your blog when updates have been made. Repeatedly pinging a blog with no changes may be flagged by sites and directories, possibly resulting in your being ignored or even banned.
So you will want to know how to ping your blog effectively and where to get the best results.
If you have not pinged your blog before, you will need to have three pieces of information that the pinging services are going to request from you.
They will want to know the url of your blog, the title - so that they know the subject - and sometimes a category.
You might also want to familiarize yourself with some of the sites that pinging services will send your information to. Often a pinging service will give you an option to choose the sites, or at least the category of directory, that you want included in that ping. For example, is your blog appropriate for non-English services? You may get the option to choose yes or no to this.
Increasingly popular is the option to enter your RSS feed, so you may want to make a note of that too.
How to Ping Your Website
Ashley Ryan clearly demonstrates how to ping a website using both Ping-o-Matic and Pingoat. The video goes through pinging two different blogs using the two different services and helpfully shows errors that can occur and makes it clear that you should not ping too often.
She also shows how to find your RSS/XML feed, if you do not have that information. Ashley also shows that you can ping posts separately and images as yet another ping, utilizing keywords too as a means of having your post listed appropriately.
Locating and Choosing a Service
There are hundreds of pinging services, but there are a few who are favored above the majority.
I mention the top five most popular sites here, along with their urls, but you are advised to research regularly, as the sites' popularity can change on a daily basis.
Logging on to the Site
Pinging services do not, as a rule, ask you to join their service or their site. To use a ping service you simply locate the url and use the service directly.
Again I have listed the same top five sites and named the fields they will require you to complete:
- Autopinger - title, url, RSS, category
- Google Ping for Blogs - url only
- Pingler - title, url, category
- Ping-o-matic - title, url, RSS, category
- Pingoat - title, url, category
How and When to Ping
Simply fill out the required fields with your information and click on GO or PING as appropriate.
Never ping twice, and do not be tempted to ping if you have not updated your site. All of the above services will warn you if you attempt to ping within 24 hours of a previous session.
Always ping when you have updated your blog, but only after 24 hours following a previous ping.
References
Fast Facts
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Fact:
Never ping twice within a 24 hour period
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Fact:
Make a note of the required information before locating the ping service url
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Fact:
Regularly research pinging services, popularity changes frequently
