2011 Ping List at ThePingList.com
Well after a lot of work I’m proud to announce the release of ThePingList.com.
This started from my last post regarding the errors I was having with my own ping list, and every other ping list I tried from the Internet.
In that post I describe how I started researching every target, and quickly found that most were long gone; either the site no longer existed, was now owned by somebody else, or no longer accepted pings.
At the end of the post I listed what I found to be the true ping list for wordPress. The post has become very popular, but it’s too long for someone who just wants the answer without wanting to read the reason..
So I came up with the idea of a site where people could paste their (or any they found on the Internet) ping list and get a rating – ie +5 for a good target vs -5 for a target that had died 5 years ago.
It took a little bit longer than expected, as I wanted the results to show as much info as possible, the target, the host, a rating based on it’s http get and xmlrpc post, plus if possible the last date that dead targets were known to be working.
I also wanted this information processed live, so if someone entered a list with a previously unknown target it would take the couple of seconds to “audit” it and save the details.
Finally I wanted to write the site in SharePoint (WSS3) just too see how it would manage and perform in a public space. This represented challenges of it’s own, not least that I had to write my own site map and SEO description / keywords solutions. I will be popping some of that code up shortly.
There is still work to be done, but I wanted to get it online and make it available as soon as possible, even if there are a couple of bugs to work out.
It’s pretty simple to use, just paste the ping list in the box provided and hit the rate button – a few seconds later you should get a rating per target plus the info on whether it is dead or alive, and why.
You can either manually filter out the dead targets from your list, or jump straight to the one that I have provided – which is audited daily and confirmed unique and working.
Let me know what you think!
phoenix
This is very great idea aaron, because i have a some problem when checking my database, there is many error about the ping service i used on my site
Neil
Excellent Idea – thanks for implementing!
I have updated my own list (except for blogpeople.net/ping, because I already have blogpeople.net/servlet/weblogUpdates in my wordpress ping list and it works). Do you know if these sites to ping are already being pinged by the rpc.pingomatic.com? I wouldn’t like to double ping anyone.
Thanks again!
aaron
Hope it helped Neil – it certainly has been interesting research all the lists out there and their validity.
PingoMatic do not list blogpeople.net as one of their targets. I have listed the targets they do claim to ping on our behalf and my research into those targets.
As you can see, there are a number of targets that are clearly dead – some are even referring to sites that no longer exist in any shape or form. I do not know why this is the case, and if ThePingList.com become more popular I may email them and ask.
Regarding duplicate pings – I believe the warnings about over-pinging are overrated. I base this on two factors
a) Most of the Ping Lists I have seen out there (I have punched over a 1000 through ThePingList) have duplicates in them and / or have targets that are also included in multi pingers such as PingoMatic. If the over-pinging issue was so valid – about 8.6 billion blogs would now be blocked.
b) Through my testing and requests through ThePingList, I have made some 3000 pings using the same dummy url and I am yet to have any of my ping tests rejected.
HOWEVER, I would not go as so far as saying dont care about duplicates because
a) I could be wrong or an idiot
b) By default your WordPress installation may ping on each edit – so if you are like me you go through a lot of typo’s – you pinging a lot, no need to ping “alotx2″
c) I would suspect that some of the more formal services – ie google and yahoo – would have counters associated with detecting spam
d) It doesnt matter whether the requests from ThePingList get blocked because I can bounce them via proxies all over the planet – you cant do that from your blog.
In summary I would suggest that it is prudent, economical and good internet citizenship to keep your ping lists to as unique targets as possible.
Sorry for the long response!! And here’s my research into the PingoMatic list;
Neil
Dear Aaron,
Thank you for your very detailed response and for putting my mind at rest. I have been learning 101 new things to get my first-ever site up and running and this ping business was just another surprise discussion to pick a side on and implement.
PC Insecurities
Great resource , shame the list is so short! Thanks – I will add them to my auto-pinger
aaron
@PC Insecurities: Thanks! Yes you are correct the list is short, but my research has shown that in reality the big lists are non productive because they either (a) have targets that no longer exist or (b) either indirectly or directly have duplicates.
Also one must remember that pinging and ping targets are really a start-up activity for a site, they are a “hey look at me”. If your content is neat, unique and desireable, the search engines begin pro-actively crawling your site, thus the “power” of pings diminishes.
So for your site, once the search engines are familiar with your site, the content will drive the visiblity. Given you are particularly targeting Twitter and Gary McKinnon awareness you may also want to look at more social media tailored targets – Twingly springs instantly to mind.
PC Insecurities
Thanks for the reply AAron- I had not heard of Twingly and I will check it out.
A massive thanks for the hyperlink to the Tweetstorm website – the more people who are aware of Gary Mckinnons case the better. If any of your readers are on twitter -they should check out http://twitter.com/rt4freegary
I am not pro-hacking and do not condone what Gary did or how he did it – after all Hacking the Military is not the cleverest of ideas -but he has Aspergers and suffers from deep depression and has been hounded by the US Justice department for 9 years now – I feel they should let him be. Send comments to @rt4freegary !
Thanks AAron
Sunil Sheoran
Good article but almost all ping servers are gone bust because of excessive pinging. Pingomatic itself pings private subscribers once they receive your ping, so it’s pretty useless looking for huge list of ping servers anymore.
This is my ping list which suffices for everything:
http://ping.feedburner.google.com/
http://rpc.pingomatic.com/
http://blogsearch.google.com/ping/RPC2
aaron
Thanks for your comments Sunil and yes those three targets would suffice for most blogs out there, one could even argue you could drop FeedBurner. One must not forget Yahoo and Bing however, whether addressing them manually or via a plugin they should be included.
You might want to check out my Disclaimer post for your blog and you might look into an affiliate disclosure particularly for posts like your “GoDaddy Discount Code”.
stupidDOPE.com
Great 2011 Ping List. Thank you for sharing it with us!
The Epic Coder
Yeah man, pinging is really important when it comes to a blog that is updated really often.
weathervane world
Does anyone use bulkping or pingomatic?