When writing articles on your WordPress blog you want them to be indexed by search engines quickly and – why not – get a ranking faster.
But this is not always the case, because search engines choose when to visit your website to index it and especially whether to rank your articles or not.
However, there are some tricks you can use to let search engines know that you have updated your content.
And as a bonus you get a ranking faster, too.
XML sitemaps
Everyone knows that if you have an XML sitemap, update it regularly and submit it to search engines, you will get indexed faster by them. This is true and you should use it.
If you are not doing this already, get yourself a Google Webmaster Tools account and submit your XML Sitemap.
To create an XML sitemap in WordPress, use Google XML Sitemaps.
This will help you get indexed faster by search engines like Google, Yahoo, Bing, Ask and others.
Get indexed faster, rank faster
Now, there is another trick that, as far as I am concerned, helps me not only get indexed faster, but also get ranked in a couple of hours.
As you probably know, search engines initially come to your website and index it. Later they check what they’ve indexed and rank it for specific queries as people search.
This process was supposed to take a while, but lately I noticed that is just a matter of hours for my articles.
And I suspect this is mainly because of the [Update Services] feature from WordPress, which I updated a couple of months ago.
WordPress Update services
By default WordPress notifies popular update services by sending a XML-RPC ping when you publish a new post or update one.
Everyone uses Ping-o-Matic, which is sending one “ping” from you and lets many other services know that you have updated the content of your blog.
Ping-O-Matic’s server (rpc.pingomatic.com) is listed by default in the WordPress [Update Services] list. All you need to do is sit back and let it work for you!
But I looked around and found other update services to ping when publishing posts and I decided to share them with you. From my perspective, this is the main reason why my articles get indexed and ranked so quickly.
Also shares on Twitter and Facebook might contribute to improving rankings, but this is a different story.
Now, below you can find the list that helps me get my articles indexed and ranked within hours from when I publish them.
Just copy the list and paste it into the [Update Services] section from the [Settings] panel > [Writing].
XML-RPC Ping Services
http://rpc.pingomatic.com
http://rpc.technorati.com/rpc/ping
http://rpc.weblogs.com/RPC2
http://rpc.twingly.com
http://blogsearch.google.com/ping/RPC2
http://api.feedster.com/ping
http://api.moreover.com/ping
http://api.moreover.com/RPC2
http://api.my.yahoo.com/RPC2
http://api.my.yahoo.com/rss/ping
http://blo.gs/ping.php
http://bulkfeeds.net/rpc
http://geourl.org/ping
http://ipings.com
http://ping.blo.gs/
http://ping.feedburner.com
http://ping.syndic8.com/xmlrpc.php
http://ping.weblogalot.com/rpc.php
http://rpc.blogrolling.com/pinger/
http://www.blogdigger.com/RPC2
http://www.blogdigger.com/RPC2
http://www.blogshares.com/rpc.php
http://www.blogsnow.com/ping
http://www.blogstreet.com/xrbin/xmlrpc.cgi
http://www.feedsubmitter.com
http://www.newsisfree.com/xmlrpctest.php
http://www.pingerati.net
http://www.pingmyblog.com
http://www.weblogalot.com/ping
Over to you now
How fast do you rank in Google? Let me know in the comments section below if you are using these services or others.
Thanks alot for the information specially the Ping list.
There was a debate recently everywhere about whether pinging is still a useful technique or not. I think your article would fall into the “Yay” side! 🙂
I consider pinging very important, because this is the only way of telling search engines that you have fresh content and they should come and index it.
This is also a huge advantage of having a blog, instead of just a static website.
So, without using ping services a blog would be just as a normal website, waiting for search engines to come and index is. Without that, it can miss some really good traffic from search engines.
Eugen
WOW Eugene so you use ALL of them everytime you have a new article?
PS do you do it with guest articles? How do you feel about that strategy?
Yes Darren, I use them for all my articles. They are set in the WordPress configuration and WordPress automatically pings those services as soon as I have a new article posted.
What do you mean by guest articles? On my blog, or on other blogs?
I haven’t tried this on other blogs that are no mine because everyone decides what’s best for their blogs and I don’t have admin access to other blogs.
It would be really nice to see if anyone has tried it yet and it works for them.
I mean ezine articles pinging them to get indexed for your keyword and then pointing via that article to a post on your site.
PS maybe I mis understand you mean I dont have to use those pinging services manually? Where did I go wrong in understanding this post?
These Ping Services can be used only on a WordPress website and they will help you get indexed quicker and possibly get rankings faster than usual.
It is an automatic services that is done via your WordPress website.
Article submission websites should have their own way of promoting articles and let search engines know that they should get indexed.
Makes sense?
OK I am slow but I caught on and added them LOL thanks. Now I am adding to ALL of my niche wordpress sites (a lot) thanks E you added value to my blogging 🙂 again you rock! I would have never thought of this
I am really glad to see that this helped you, Darren and that it added value to your blogging.
Let me know when you see the improvements.
I also noticed that if you add Twitter, Facebook and Stumble Upon in the mix it’s even better.
Well thats no problem LOL
Thanks for the suggestions. I have a new client with a blog that’s not WordPress and I’m trying to figure out why her blogs are not being indexed regularly. Post are made to the blog 3 times a week but Google is slow to index – takes a week. I’ll definitely check the settings for “pinging.” In reality, the whole thing needs to be rebuilt to work better.
Liz,
What platform does your client use? Does that platform offer pinging services? If yes, you can check how to add and use them.
Additionally find some ways of getting that content shared on Twitter and Facebook. Search engines have started to use them as rankings signals and I discovered some interesting thing lately.
Eugen
Thank you for the great information! Although I am not new to the internet, I am new to all the ways out there to get your blogs, articles, and sites indexed. So much info…so little time! It is nice to have alot of info in one spot. Eugen when should you ping, with every new article or blog, or 1x a day or week? Also, should you ping all these sites with the same article or blog?
I hear you, Kathie. Everything moves too fast and it’s hard to keep up.
WordPress automatically pings these services when a new article is published. However, I would not recommend you to ping them more often or when you don’t have something fresh on the website.
Search engines will come once, twice, third time and if they don’t see fresh content, they might ignore any future signals when you genuinely have fresh content.
So, I would be careful with that.
Eugen
Hi
you did repeat
http://rpc.blogrolling.com/pinger/
http://rpc.blogrolling.com/pinger/
?
It was by mistake Jalal, but it’s fixed now.
Thank you for letting me know.
Eugen
Hi,
Is there a danger of redundant pings if putting all those services in WordPress? Right now I have pingomatic and it seems to work fine. I just dont’ want Google to penalize my site if it gets a bunch of pings for the same post, your thoughts please.
Yosef
Yosef, I haven’t had any problems with my blog using this and that is why I recommend it. Moreover, Google does not receives the pings from your sites, but from those ping services.
Hi,
Thanks for the interesting and useful post. Do I have to register my blog first with all the ping services sites you have mentioned or does wordpress automatically do it for you?
Hi Sanjiv,
No, all you have to do is just add those services to your settings page.
Hi Eugen,
Another query – In the settings and writing section of wordpress, should the Atom Publishing Protocol and XML-RPC boxes be checked or not? By default, they are not – could not understand their importance. Thanks again.
Sanjiv, that’s only if you want to publish content on your blog from a desktop blogging client or remote website that uses the Atom Publishing Protocol or one of the XML-RPC publishing interfaces.
I was just over at Technorati and found a note that one no longer needs to ping them. “As of the relaunch of Technorati on October 14, 2009, we are no longer using pings; you no longer need to inform us each time you update your page.” Am I missing out by just relying on pingomatic?
Speaking of pinging, I do a lot of editing and updating, so I use a free plugin called cbnet Ping Optimizer. It lets me set the amount of time between pings so I don’t look like a ping maniac when I’m obsessively fixing a post that’s already been published.
You can test this.
Just publish an article and check Google using the title of your article as the search term in 30 minutes, 1 hour, 2 hours… to see how fast you can find your article there.
Next time to the same with the list of ping services that I have in this post and see if there is any difference.
If you like, you can also let us know your findings.
OK Eugen, just pasted in all the ping services and subscribed to comments to remember to come back to report results. 🙂
That’s great! Please do let me know your insights.
Hiii.. really nice suggestions are provided by you here. I’ll try to follow these suggestions in my best. Keep it up in future too.
I use Google Webmaster Tools to submit an XML sitemap after updating my blog. Lately, I see that it takes a couple of days for my new pages to be indexed by Google. Does anyone have a similar observation?
David, are you using WordPress?
If yes, you can use Google XML Sitemaps to automatically submit your sitemaps to search engines.
I just use the blogspot, is it some tools to generate the sitemap for blogspot blog?
How can I use these Ping service, when I enter the address into the browser, most of them require me to use the POST request. Can you please provide me a sample of use. Thank you so much!
Hey Leo,
You need to enter them into the [Update Services] section from the [Settings] panel > [Writing].
Make sure that you are reading all the instructions.
Thanks this was actually i was searching for , thank u
Eugen, I have a much longer ping list, but wondering whether some of them are considered “bad neighborhoods” after reading an article by Viperchill http://www.viperchill.com/future-of-blogging/ Wondered if your list was shorter because it has been “weeded out” of pings considered bad by Google?
yes nice information about fast ping i will use these
Thanks Eugene, its a great information. I really want to implement the techniques you have mentioned above.
Thanks for this great share, i will update ping services with these sites and let u know about result
Great site you have here Eugen. I have to agree with you pinging does get us ranked faster for sure. We too use a similar list for pinging with our WordPress designs. Your list has our list and a few more than ours. We will add them to our list now, thank you for sharing. Keep up the good work.
Thanks Eugene, its a great information. ill try it now 🙂
I am having trouble bringing the first order system can help me how to do this good work.
Thanks for this great share, i will update ping services with these sites ,.
I am so happy getting across this article when i search on google on how to rank fast and i am impressed being here at the right time as a newbie and in conclusion thanks for your wonderful tips and i have already started trying it now and will let you know my findings
Is this info still valid? I use Pingler and it seem to work very good. I have a feeling there are better services out there..
Wow, i never knew the update services in wordpress could contribute to higher site rankings. Thanks for this post Eugen!
Hi,
Can you tell me how to ping existing index pages? I mean suppose a blog writer already published an article and later on he put new links and text in it. Now want to index those links and text again. Then how to ping it?
Thanks in advance,
Tushar
Thanks for sharing. pingomatic really works.
Interesting that Matt Cutt’s questioned excessing pinging in this blog post though…
http://www.trafficgenerationcafe.com/wordpress-ping-list-2012/
You thoughts?
Hi Eugen, You write: “get yourself a Google Webmaster Tools account and submit your XML Sitemap.”
So, I got the Google Webmaster tools account, but I have no idea how to actually submit my XML Sitemap. I’m using Yoast’s WordPress SEO plugin which apparently generates the sitemap, but again doesn’t tell you how to upload it. At least not that I can find, or understand. Do you have a related article on how to submit the sitemap? Thanks for any tips!