You say you don't know what pinging is all about, and didn't know who to ask?
Well, you've arrived at the right place. Let's talk blog pinging.
Pinging is really quite simple. It's letting the search engines, RSS feeds, and other interested blog sites know that your blog has been updated. It's like running out into the streets of the internet and screaming that your blog has a a brilliant new post for everyone to read.
Well, maybe not quite that dramatic, but you get the idea. It's simply a notification of a post. That sounds less interesting than the screaming wildly in the streets analogy though. We'll go with that one.
Many people ask me if it's essential to ping the blog services immediately after poting as I suggest in the introduction. As soon as you post is the best time. If you do forget, however, ping the blog later when you think of it. Don't worry about being on time. Better a late ping than no ping at all.
There are a number of all inclusive blog services pingers available to bloggers. Two are free and one charges a nominal fee.
The best known free blog pinger is Ping-O-Matic. It's very good and I have been using and recommending the service to blog pingers everywhere. Bookmark it.
A new free blog pinger has just been unveiled, and the word is arriving, via my good friend Toby Bloomberg of Diva Marketing, and from Cary at CancerNewsWatch. The free blog pinger service is currently sporting the uninspiring name of Fred's Ping Service. Yes, he does need some branding help, doesn't he!
Well, help is arriving as Toby Bloomberg is holding a "Name That Blog Pinger Service Contest" on her blog. Be sure to post some great name ideas, and help Fred find a name for his pinger. It's a great service. I gave it a test run, and it works just fine. I recommend bookmarking it too.
A fee based blog ping service is available called Blog Blaster I know little about the service as I haven't used it. The marketing page does show some good screen shots and lists some great features. Blog Blaster might be worth trying out by those bloggers who are seeking a fee based service.
Now, there is no excuse for not pinging your blog posts.
I'm off to ping this post.
See you later.
