Ping sites? Worth it at all?

[YNWA]

Hi.

Title says it all. Are Ping sites worth it? Eg. http://www.pingmyurl.com/

Why are they or why aren't they?

What are the best ones if any?

What is the best way to use them?

Thanks

[donford]

From a web development standpoint I use them I actually have 2 bookmarked both at home and at work.

http://mxtoolbox.com/SuperTool.aspx
http://dnscheck.pingdom.com/
The reason I use them is to test how a website / dns is behaving from IP's other then my own. I've had cases where I could not access a website from my address yet it was able to be accessed from another. By using pings and tracerts you can help understand if there is a network issue in the route or if you tripped an internal IP block. The two I listed have many other useful features that help.  MXtoolbox also shows you if your website has been flagged in a blacklist as spam.

To answer if they they are worth it? Well, I've never purposely clicked an ad, if you're looking at it from a revenue generation standpoint, however they do offer services that I am sure mid ranged companies would be very interested in knowing, like when your site goes down.

Just my thoughts hope that helps