How to Ping Your Hub: Get Your Hub Indexed by Search Engines

Ping, in the computer world, is a software program that allows users to determine if a site or connection is working. A message is sent to the site or connection, which results in a message back to the originating computer that the connection worked. In blogging, or in hubs, the definition of ping is a bit different. Blog pings send a message to a server, search engine, or other site to let them know there is something new to crawl. When you ping your site or your hub page, search engines send spiders to crawl your site or page to index it. Once the page is indexed, it is searchable through the search engines. This will help others find your hub page, since it will now come up in the natural (i.e. unpaid) search engine results.

Again, pinging will notify search engines, directories, and other websites that your hubpage exists or has been updated. The coveted, but elusive natural traffic afforded by Google, Yahoo, Bing, and other search engines comes from being indexed by these sites. They can't index sites they do not know exist. Will they find your hubpage without pinging? Yes, eventually, but we all need traffic sooner than that. Pinging reduces the time it takes to get your hubpage indexed, therefore, it reduces the time it takes for your hubpage to come up in natural search results when users search for your key phrase.

 Everytime you create a new hubpage, you should ping the page.  If you return to the hubpage and make changes or improve the page, you should ping again.  However, pings should only be done occasionally.  If pings are done too often, you will first be warned, then possibly banned from the pinging site, if you continue.  Some pinging services ping the same sites, directories, or search engines, so it is important not to use overlapping ping services.  For instance, if you use www.pingler.com, don't also use www.pingomatic.com. These sites ping many of the same places, and will cause issues for you.

There are many web sites that provide this service for free.  To use them, navigate to the site, type in your hubpage title, then type in (or copy and paste) the URL to your hub. Some services will require you to fill in a captcha textbox.  Many people consider captcha tools as annoyances, but they are important to separate human generated requests from machine or computer generated requests for pings.  This is a good thing, since it reduces the load on the service provider's server, and makes it possible for you to use it.  Otherwise, it could be like getting a busy signal everytime you try to call someone.

Ping services I use:

• Pingler
• Pingoat

There are others, but if you use too many, you risk your efforts being considered spinging, or spam pinging.

For those who want more pinging services, a quick Google search on "ping services" will provide you with several sites that have comprehensive lists of these services.