Are pinging and RSS the same function?

[genietoast]

I see that RSS aggregators sometimes talk about pinging. Is that the same as the RSS function?

[thmgoodw]

Originally Posted by genietoast

I see that RSS aggregators sometimes talk about pinging. Is that the same as the RSS function?

Two completely different things.

Pinging -- Basically notifying various ping services across the web that your page is freshly updated and that they should go check it out. pingler.com is a great source for that.

RSS -- From wikipedia, RSS (most commonly translated as "Really Simple Syndication" but sometimes "Rich Site Summary") is a family of web feed formats used to publish frequently updated works—such as blog entries, news headlines, audio, and video—in a standardized format.

All blogs typically come with a built in RSS feed, whether you host the blog or not (i.e, whether it is your domain or something like blogger). You can submit your RSS feeds to RSS aggregators (the top ones are feedage, feedagg, millionrss, feedburner), which then collect and store RSS feeds.
RSS feeds are great because you can get both backlinks from your RSS feeds that you send to RSS aggregators, and links in RSS feeds that are sent to RSS aggregators tend to get located by Google more easily.

[genietoast]

thmgoodw, thank you. You've clarified that for me, especially the part about the back links.

Thanky thanky.

[kkchoon]

Some time they work so similar... getting your page indexed!