Is Pinging important?

[KS__]

Somebody suggested me to ping my website's backlinks using services like www.Pingler.com.

Firstly, I don't know what 'pinging' is and why is it important.

Secondly, Should I go for it?

Lastly, what kind of links should I ping regularly? I researched on google and got a feeling that only blogs should be pinged because they are updated regularly. Is that so?

[AndrewWheeler58]

Firstly, I don't know what 'pinging' is and why is it important.

Pinging will notify the search engines of a 'change' to the URL you are submitting.  A lot of the 'lower quality' links often struggle to get found and indexed, so pinging is often used to help get them noticed. If you have authoritative, genuine links, then you needn't ping - the chances are the search engines will find them.

Secondly, Should I go for it?

Pinging links manually one at a time is time consuming, and the time could be better spent elsewhere. That said, you can use a service like http://links2rss.com/ to paste 50 links into a single RSS feed, and then use your pinging service to ping the single RSS feed. This is bordering on the grey hat side of things - so I might get a few thumbs down, but its quite a common practice.

Lastly, what kind of links should I ping regularly?

Low quality links which the search engines might struggle to find - blog comments, forums, articles etc. Although you should be placing less emphasis on acquiring these links as they become less and less beneficial for rankings.

I researched on google and got a feeling that only blogs should be pinged because they are updated regularly. Is that so?

No. Although blog pinging is common (Wordpress has a section to paste a list of ping sites) and good practice, you can ping any website, link or blog.

Hope that helps.

Cheers

Andrew

[KS__]

Thanks for the awesome response Andrew. I love your replies!

[AndrewWheeler58]

Thank you for the comment KS!

[KS__]

Hi Andrew.

I have another question for you. Please offer help:

I have been using Google Adwords tool for keyword research until today when I signed up for 7 day trial of Wordtracker. To my astonishment the results were different with a huge margin for most of my keywords.

Which of these should I trust more?

Do you suggest any other tool which is better than these both and is free or affordable?

[AndrewWheeler58]

Hi KS,

First thing to check - make sure you are using the 'exact match' option over on the left with the Adwords tool, a common oversight is leaving the default (broad) checked. That should help delivery a little more accuracy. However...

Which of these should I trust more?

Neither! You should take your keyword list and run a small paid Google Adword campaign to get a handle on the real search volume.

When you setup the campaign, ensure the content network is turned off under 'Network and Devices' and you use exact match options on your keywords.

Also, give a generous 'Max CPC' to ensure your ads display, and you link to a high quality landing page in the ad so it displays on the first page and you avoid harming your quality score.

Run the campaign for at least 48hours, and then view the number of impressions served. Impressions show how often the ad is displayed - and as you are using exact match keywords, this number is also the amount of times the phrase is searched.

A much more accurate method to get a handle on the search volume.

Hope that helps.

Cheers,

Andrew

[KS__]

Thanks Andrew.

I will do as suggested and get back to you if I need further help.

[KS__]

Hi Andrew.

I just posted two new questions titled "What after I place a blog comment" and "Traditional link requests still the right way?".

Please reply when you have time.

Thanks,

KS__