Blog and ping and RSS feeds?

[markiteer]

What does blog and ping mean exactly? I know what blog is just don't understand ping. What is an RSS feed? Where and how are they used?

[Andyhenry]

Originally Posted by markiteer

What does blog and ping mean exactly? I know what blog is just don't understand ping. What is an RSS feed? Where and how are they used?

Don't worry about it - you're 3 years late.

FYI....

Pinging is the process of signalling the 'update services' that new content is available. It's usually used in conjunction with blogs (It's a built-in function of most blog platforms) but is a separate process in its own right which you can do manually.

I made videos showing this several years ago when it first became possible.

You don't really need to care about it now.

If you don't believe me and want a list of update services (a ping list), just do a search in the forum - I've posted lists for this many times and I'm sure we went around this subject yet again once this new forum started and people posted lists again.

But - don't waste your time. There are much more useful things you can do for your business than get wrapped around the axle with irrelevant techy stuff like this.

Andy

[Neil Morgan]

Hello Jennifer

Of the 'auto-ping' services you mentioned, which would you recommend?

Cheers,

Neil

[Andyhenry]

Originally Posted by cosmokid

I couldn't disagree more with Andy's post about pinging not being valid or useful anymore.

Here's the thing. When I split test performance of my regular html websites with and without a feed, the fast indexing of pages, increased domination of my keywords in Google, and boosted traffic when I use a feed is crystal clear.

But I guess it's not useful anymore?

Jennifer

I guess I mistyped or you misread.

I didn't say the technology wasn't useful - just that you don't need to learn about doing it - just use a blog and it does it all for you........

This is a no-brainer - it's the reason everyone is using wordpress blogs, and probably part of the reason this forum is running on the system is does now.

So - while you can feel to disagree strongly with me - I think we actually agree.

The conversation is just different now.

3 years ago when I was making videos for people to show how to manually ping - you had to do it like that, so "blog and ping" became a popular term - now, this is not the case.

You can get the same results with zero effort.

The technology is just built-in now, so there's no reason for anyone to waste time trying to work out 'how' to do it, or caring about update service lists.

Like I said - I've been selling videos on how to make blogs and set this stuff up in this very forum in the past because I hate people getting confused by such trivial things.

A lot of people like to make the techy stuff sound difficult or like some new special thing that others need to 'get in to'. It's just BS - most of these things can be setup and left and don't require any special knowledge, but a lot of people make a living by making it sound difficult so people want to pay for stuff about it.

I've even done videos on all the bookmarking services, how to set your blog up to get auto-submitted to them and much more.... so clearly I don't think they're not useful - just that there's no secret to it and anyone can easily do it without caring about all the technical aspects.


Andy

[Jakehyten]

who is right here?

[dclodge]

Originally Posted by cosmokid

If you have a regular html site (not a blog) you can easily set up a simple one page feed...it's just a text file formatted a certain way which you upload to your server. Each time you post new content, you change a few lines in your feed so you're posting a short blurb about your new content. Then you go to one of those sites -- pingoat.com, pingomatic.com, or autopinger.com and enter the url of your website to get your new content indexed immediately.
Jennifer

I am not convinced about Wordpress...yet - so my sites up to now are manually created and updated. (All WF members can slap me now for living in the Dark Ages).]
Jennifer, I would like more info on the text file you are talking about please.
Thanks
Dean

[Andyhenry]

Originally Posted by Jakehyten

who is right here?

There is no right - - we're saying the same thing.

If you use a system that includes an rss feed and a ping facility - you're good to go.

If you have no idea what any of this means - that's fine, just ignore it, it's not essential.

If you have a blog and aren't sure whether you set it up to do this stuff - just go to 'settings' and 'writing' (or the equivalent on your platform) and look for :

"update services"

by default wordpress publishes to http://rpc.pingomatic.com/

This is all you need.

if this is empty (unlikely) just add it.

There are lots of others but you don't need them.

If you want to submit your blog to rss directories just grab the rss url (in my case it would be: Midas Marketing - Success Tips For Marketers ) and post that to them or fill in their forms.

you can find a list here: RSS Submissions

Andy

[omozu]

please what i want to know is how do i track the resulth from my pinging my blog lets say i post and i ping will i get up to 300 visitors from that ping

[zeurois]

It will take a while, it won't happen right away especially if your blog is new.

[Ron Killian]

I agree with Jennifer, it is worth knowing. Not huge traffic these days, so not something you want to spend alot of time on, but is worth some effort.

I say it's worth knowing because it's not just for blogs. I added a feed to my online store and it has definitely made indexing quicker, brought in some traffic and buying customers. Well worth my time.

[dvduval]

Is there still much of a market from creating and running an RSS directory that people can submit to?