Auto-pinging Google from WordPress

Surely you heard about Google’s new Blog Ping Service (see my previous post). Yes, Google made it very clear how to do a manual ping. The auto-pinging instructions, however, make confusing reading. If you are a [tag]WordPress[/tag] user it’s a snap! Just add this URL to your WordPress Update Services (Options -> Writing):

Does it work? Yes it does. I have tested it and new posts appear in Google’s Blog Search listing in a few minutes.

It is redundant? I don’t think so. [tag]Google[/tag] encourages bloggers to ‘play it safe’ and submit their updates (see the FAQs). They encourage pinging their blog service even if you have a sitemap registered within Google Webmaster Tools.

If you are so inclined, you can monitor your ping here where Google publishes the last 5 minutes of it’s ping activitiy.

Eventually, Ping-o-matic and other bulk pinging services will add Google to their list of sites. Until then, make sure you get noticed!

Note:
If you are like me and need to make frequent edits to your posts, you run the risk of getting blacklisted by the pinging services. I strongly recommend that you download and install the Smart Update Pinger plugin for WordPress. This plugin replaces the built-in ping/notify functionality only pinging services when publishing new posts, not when editing them.