To Ping or Not to Ping

Today's blog post was going to be about getting your blog noticed. However, the word PING suddenly had me wondering how that word was created and what the actual definition was. I wanted to know so I could dumb it down for me and the other non-tekkies of the world who inhabit the blogosphere.

The Big W

I visited Wikipedia for the answer:

Ping is a computer network tool used to test whether a particular host is reachable across an IP network; it is also used to self test the network interface card of the computer, or as a speed test. It works by sending ICMP “echo request” packets to the target host and listening for ICMP “echo response” replies. Ping estimates the round-trip time, generally in milliseconds, and records any packet loss, and prints a statistical summary when finished.

Okay. Clear as mud, right?

Joan's Jolly Simple Version

Remember those old submarine movies where the captain says: "give them one ping." The communications operator pushes a button, and we all hear a metallic PING. That's basically what happens when a computer sends a ping to a target. The ping is an ICMP, or Internet Control Message Protocol, one of the core protocols of the Internet protocol suite which is what makes the Internet work. That's all you need to know. It's mostly used by networked computers' operating systems to send error messages, i.g. a requested service isn't available etc.

These ICMP packets are bits of information. That's all a packet is. An echo request means that they send a packet of info and want to hear back from the receiver, that's the echo response which is another packet of info.

Ping is used either as a verb or noun, but why is it important to getting our blog noticed?

Because you can also use pings. You can list your blog with different agencies and then ping them when you have posted. They'll ping you in response and note that your blog has been updated. This process can raise your rank in the blog world and your ratings.

Takeaway Truth

Pings can be important if you're trying to get your blog noticed. Tune in tomorrow for a list of who to ping.