Trim Your “Ping List” – Gain Performance!
Pinging or doing notification to Syndication Services is important part of promoting blogs and spreading the word about new content. It is also a source of traffic to some extent and one of the most controversial issues in blogosphere!
I have seen hundreds of posts including from very known bloggers and marketers that share their opinion on Blog Ping and size of the list of RPC services your blog should have. Interesting thing – these opinions are generally radically different, in fact I have seen one very known blogger/marketer sharing a ping list that required quite a bit of scrolling just to see it!
There Is a HUGE Problem With It!
In my previous, older post I have shared a tip on how to “Optimize Your WordPress Posting Experience” by implementing couple plugins and reducing a size of the Ping List. Here is the problem as I have defined it in that post:
Problem.
Based on my research I found that when you Publish your post, system is designed to go through your ping list and notify each service one by one until all notified. As you add more services to your ping list, delay continues to increase to the point that you start seeing time outs on your page. I have experienced it on several occasions and my list is not too big.
And just because WordPress have gone through several version doesn’t mean that problem is gone! In fact, it is still very much present and if you are seeing a delay when you hit that “Publish” button – more than likely it could be your issue!
Unfortunately, unless you are using a third-party plugin, such Ultimate Plugins Smart Update Pinger – you will not be able to know about it, as by default WordPress doesn’t provide you with a log where you can see any errors with your ping list!
My current Ping List is fairly short, since I rely on FeedBurner and third-party pinging services such as Pingomatic (via RPC) to send notifications:
http://rpc.pingomatic.com
http://www.blogpeople.net/servlet/weblogUpdates
http://api.moreover.com/RPC2
http://blogsearch.google.com/ping/RPC2
http://rpc.weblogs.com/RPC2
http://services.newsgator.com/ngws/xmlrpcping.aspx
http://www.blogpeople.net/servlet/weblogUpdates
http://xping.pubsub.com/ping/
http://rpc.odiogo.com/ping/
…and still I noticed issues and slowdown during publishing! When I checked the log, this is what I have seen:
Pay attention to red entries highlighted. Those have failed to be properly notified and while last one is due to some feed issues I’m investigation and one due to a duplicate entries of the same failed Ping URL - 2 errors are an actual problem!
Event with my short list, which is quite efficient – I had problems and the longer your ping list becomes, more chances of slow performance you stand to experience and unfortunately the only way to verify your list is by visiting each site.
In my case I have discovered that both services simply no longer accept pings – see images below:
I wouldn’t have known about it unless errors were present in my log! I trimmed my list and as result will gain performance – how about you?
I have to admit I’m still quite upset that FeedBurner have removed the option for us to actually choose with services they will notify for us. In my mind it was one of the more useful functionality of the FeedBurner we could control and now you just have to guess to avoid double pinging some services or keep default Ping List recommended by WordPress, use one I provided above as tested or choose one created by someone else.
Just be absolutely sure to check your log after creating new list and trim all services that failed!
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Interesting. It’s been a while since I’ve checked the log, but I haven’t noticed any issues with my long list.
Dennis Edell´s last blog ..Are You Thankful For Your Blogging Community?
Thanks for the heads-up on this, Alex – I hadn’t realized Technorati was no longer accepting pings – off now to remove them from my list!
Doug Champigny´s last blog ..Free Marketing Resources To Bolster Your Marketing Training Library
I know, amazing what one can learn through log review
Hi Alex,
Thanks for the heads up on this issue. I will install the recommended plugin ASAP.
Thanks again!
Levente´s last blog ..AdvertiseInEurope.com announces changes to its services
Alex,
This is good information. I used to have one of those long ping lists, but changed to the very short one included with the Ultimate Plugins Smart Update Pinger.
Just using that ping list, claiming your blog feed in FeedBurner, and an rss feed submission to feedagg.com gets my new sites indexed quickly.
Best,
Lowell
Lowell´s last blog ..Article Marketing And Writing Secrets
Thanks Lowell,
Nice tip of feedagg.com! Thanks for sharing, looks like a good place to add your feed to, high ranking aggregator.
Excellent posting and never really was concerned about this until now! Thank you for bringing it to our attention and time to go tune up the blogs to max performance.
Thanks for the heads-up. I was only using ping-o-matic and ping-goat. I am off to investigate now. I appreciate that you are kind enough to share what you have learned along the way!!
Best Regards,
Michael Hunter
Alex, http://www.blogpeople.net/servlet/weblogUpdates shows up twice in your short Ping List… I just realized going over my own ping list and comparing it with your short one.
Levente´s last blog ..Textile Industry Trend Analysis
Thank You!
Oversight on my part, appreciate the heads-up!
Sure, no problem. Now, in this case would’ve been a problem if one just copied that list and pasted it into his/her own blog’s ping list? Would’ve been considered duplicate pinging?
Levente´s last blog ..Must Ask Questions To Create Effective Ads
Well, that specific site could be probably removed all together. It is non-english site.
Where can I find the ping log? Thanks!!!
vince´s last blog ..I Am The Life
Vince,
Settings->UP Smart Update Pinger – below all the options it has log file
I think I am no longer using Smart Update Pinger. I had some troubles with that plugin. Everytime I publish, it really slows down and sometimes gives me an error page. I also tried working with my pinglist in the default settings of WordPress, and so far, I never had a problem. Been in this situation for about 5 months and I never had a problem. My list is still increasing, so as my traffic.
One time my host even suspended my website for producing a CPU usage spike. And it really troubled me a lot. I tried to search the problem, and I found out two plugins causes that, the Smart Update Pinger and the plugin that list the popular posts (I forgot the name of that plugin).
From the time that I got rid of those nasty plugins, my blog went well and never had problems so far.
vince´s last blog ..I Am The Life
Hi Alex,
Thanks for bringing this to my attention. I have always wondered if my ping list was any good. I have tried long ones and short ones. None of them seemed too good. I think I got them from old ping list. They all had non-working links.
I will change all my blogs to this list and see how it goes.
Herschel Lawhorn´s last blog ..How To Drive Free Instant Traffic To Your Affiliate Offers
Alex I just found this site…First let me say that I have one expert blog installation & it is the one that constantly shows up in Google…I have been using Maxblog Press for a pinging plugin & it seem to work as well as the one you suggested…I also have a long list that has many errors on it…I will definitely look into trimming it down…Thanx…Kenney
Kenney´s last blog ..Warnings