03 Dec 11 4:45 am
camilla wrote:Can someone please explain what "pinging" is? thanks!
Hey Camilla, pinging is a way to send a message to the search bots to notify them when you have fresh or updated content on your website.
Some website systems (like WordPress) automatically ping the search engines to let them know that there is new content on your site. Wordpress actually will Overping (ping them too often) if you are not careful. There are plugins that you can use to limit this effect, so you won't be ignored by the bots when you add fresh content.
However, if you are using a desktop application (such as XsitePRo, Dreamweaver, or Kompozer) , or for building links on other sites like article directories and web 2.0 sites, you sometimes need to Ping them to let the search bots know that the links exist.
Pinging doesn't really HAVE to be done. Usually the bots will find your content eventually if you are posting it on quality sites. However, pinging will get them to notice it faster, and the faster they index your links, the faster you will get credit for them and your rankings will improve.
If you are doing massive link building though, it isn't feasible to ping every post you do. Generally, if you use social media to share your guest posts, articles, and videos with your social circles, pinging isn't really necessary since the search bots look at these sites regularly to find new content being shared. Simply tweeting your posts, sharing them on Google+ or liking them on Facebook will often get the search bots crawling your pages within minutes of them going live.
I don't ping anything myself, and I still find most of my content being indexed within minutes of posting. However, some people who are building links on low quality sites that don't see the search bots as often need to ping the links, otherwise it could take weeks or even months before Google finds them.
