Ping

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What Does Ping Mean?

In the context of blogging, ping is a technique used by blogs to notify one or more servers whenever the blog is updated.

To notify the servers, the blog uses an XML-RPC-based push mechanism which is known as pinging. Pinging has drastically improved content visibility time on the internet since the days when servers had to wait for a long time after submitting their content to the search engines.

The process is automated and very efficient. There is a certain flow or procedure by which the servers are notified each time the blogs are updated.

Techopedia Explains Ping

When a blog is updated with fresh content, the blog sends an XML-RPC signal to one or more ping servers that are controlled by the blog.

The ping servers in turn notify one or more services such as search engines, website directories, news websites, aggregators and feed websites.

The services then accept the updated content and perform their respective jobs. For example, search engines index the website while aggregators notify their subscribers about any relevant content whenever it accepts input from ping servers.

Ping servers can be either open or proprietary. Pinging has reduced the time for web crawlers to find fresh content on search engines.

While pinging has made life easier for bloggers, this technique has also been for spam distribution.

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Margaret Rouse
Technology Expert
Margaret Rouse
Technology Expert

Margaret is an award-winning technical writer and teacher known for her ability to explain complex technical subjects to a non-technical business audience. Over the past twenty years, her IT definitions have been published by Que in an encyclopedia of technology terms and cited in articles by the New York Times, Time Magazine, USA Today, ZDNet, PC Magazine, and Discovery Magazine. She joined Techopedia in 2011. Margaret's idea of a fun day is helping IT and business professionals learn to speak each other’s highly specialized languages.

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