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Do WordPress Ping & Update Services Help Or Damage SEO?

Post Updated: 24/03/2021 By Andrew Smith 22 Comments

Do WordPress ping and update services help your blog? Or can they cause hard or damage to your SEO and search engine results?

The world of Search Engine Optimization can be a really confusing one! There are lots of sites out there with differing opinions and sometimes it’s really hard to know what to do. Recently I was asked a question about “pinging” a WordPress website.

You may be aware that there are lots of websites out there that offer update services and extended ping lists. The question is, should we be using them? Or should we just stick with the default ping service that comes with the WordPress installation? Also, can add an updated ping list to your WordPress blog help or damage your SEO efforts? I decided to do a bit of research.

What is pinging and what’s a ping service?

For those of you that don’t know what pinging is, allow me to briefly explain. A ping is basically a signal that is sent out from your blog that notifies the search engines of any new content that you add to your site. WordPress will automatically send out a ping when you add a new page or post. It will even send out a ping when you do any updates to your posts.

The ping is first sent out to a special online service where it is then forwarded, eventually notifying the search engines of your content. This process allows the search engines to discover what’s new on your blog and what updates you have made. If the search engines like your content, you will be indexed within the search results.

Google Vs Web Spam!

There has been a big battle for some time now between Google and a few so-called internet “gurus”. The internet Guru’s are always on the lookout for loopholes and easy ways to get into the search engines.

Of course, Google is generally one step ahead! Although conflicting information online has led to a lot of confusion when it comes to SEO. Some people are willing to give anything a try, especially if they think it’s going to put them at the top of the search engines.

Is adding more WordPress update services a good idea?

There are many differing opinions on the internet as to whether or not adding more ping services to your WordPress blog is a good thing. There are lots of websites out there that offer updated ping service lists.

Most of these sites claim that the more up to date ping services that you use, the faster you will get your content indexed. There are some big names out there that follow this advice too. But I’m not one of them! And here’s why…

The purpose and misuse of pinging

The whole purpose of pinging your WordPress blog is to get your content indexed within the search engines. When I post a new page, post or update it might take a few hours or even a few days to get indexed. I don’t really care about the timescale, the most important thing is that it gets indexed.

But did you know that you could actually be harming your search engine ranks by pinging too often? And the quickest way to over ping your website is by adding a huge list of ping services to it.

Could over pinging label you as a spammer?

Going back a few years things were very different in SEO terms. There was a time when building huge amounts of backlinks to your posts could get them to the top of the search engines. Do backlinks still have the same effect that they used to have? No, they don’t. Google has evolved and all of those methods of creating spun content and low-quality websites have gone right out of the window.

But it would seem that old habits die hard for some people. There is still tons of advice on the internet that would have you believe that back-linking is still effective and that you should ping everything that you create to multiple services. It has been reported by one service that approximately 90% of pings sent to them were actually spam links. So it will come as no surprise to learn that Google implemented some safeguarding into its search algorithm to detect such actions. These days Google can and will issue penalties to those blogs that it suspects of using spammy techniques. And you could be doing it without even realizing it!

WordPress ping lists could damage your SEO

Have you ever taken the advice of an internet guru or SEO master who told you to update your WordPress ping list? If so then you might want to reconsider after reading this. I recently discovered a post from Ana at the Traffic Generation Cafe, who thankfully pointed me in the right direction.

Here I finally found the answer that I had been looking for. I had suspected that pinging could be classed as spam for some time, but until now I had no hard evidence to prove it.

Ana pointed me to an extremely long post on the Viperchill.com blog, entitled “The Future Of Blogging”. I highly recommend that you read both Ana’s and Viperchills posts as linked to here as they really are quite enlightening.

It was within those posts that I finally found the proof that I had been looking for. Ping your WordPress blog too much or to the wrong services and you could damage your search engine ranks.

WordPress Update Services CAN Damage SEO!

Glen at Viperchill tells us that he was checking his search results when he found something very interesting. A page that should have ranked very easily for their brand name was actually beaten by three other much lower quality sites.

After talking about this on social media, Glen got a personal message from Matt Cutts (former head of webspam at Google). Matt asked Glen what services he was currently using to “ping” his posts with.

Here’s what glen had to say:

Viperchill with proof that WordPress update services can damage your SEO and search engine ranks.

Think about this!

WordPress comes with one service that it uses to send pings out to every time you publish or edit a post. That means that every time you make an amendment and re-publish your edited content, another ping is sent. These pings are then distributed to lots of other services before notifying the search engines.

So if you are doing quite a bit of editing and re-publishing, the pings can really start to add up. Now consider the fact that some internet Guru’s recommend adding lists of 50, 60, even up to 200 new ping services to your blog! You might think that you are submitting quality content to Google when in actual fact you are performing mass webspam!

If you have a ping list of 50 services on your blog and press publish 2 or 3 times during an edit, you could well be sending out hundreds of spammy signals. And then there is the fact that Google doesn’t like all of the update services out there either. You could well be linking to a service that Google does not approve of.

Have I been given a Google penalty for ping spamming?

It would seem that the Google penalty for sending out lots of pings might not be as bad as getting de-indexed. Like in the example above, Glen knew that he should be ranking in the no.1 position but was actually ranked number 4. But the point that I am making here is that you could be harming each and every one of your posts as a result of this one setting within your WordPress blog.

You could be ranking on page 2 for a search term, where you should be on page one. You could be in the same position as Glen and just missing out on that top spot. The worst part of this is that you could be missing out on valuable traffic. Fortunately, updating your ping services couldn’t be easier.

How to check your WordPress ping services

If this post has at least convinced you to check your update services within WordPress, then here’s how to do it.

Within your WordPress dashboard simply go to Settings and then Writing.

You will see the WordPress update services that you have enabled on your blog.

A large list of ping update services for WordPress.

You can remove the ones that you don’t want by simply selecting and deleting them.

Here is what the default update services look like.

To ping or not to ping!

That is the question! So when should or shouldn’t we ping our blog? Well as a rule there is no major effect from pinging just one service. However, if you have updated your ping list or you have a plugin that also sends out pings, then you should perhaps look into it.

Sending lots of ping signals can affect your rankings, so why risk it? My best advice is to use the default settings that WordPress comes installed with. The default settings send your ping to a service called “Ping-o-matic”, which do a really good job. These guys automatically enable and disable services as necessary, so that you don’t need to worry about it!

One other thing that you might want to consider is disabling the update services entirely. If you are doing a lot of editing in a single session then you might consider turning off the updates. I sometimes have days where I will spend a couple of hours updating and amending old posts.

This of course can lead to a lot of clicks on the publish button and lots of pings being sent out. Simply by removing the update services you can temporarily stop WordPress from pinging your site. Just don’t forget to put your update services back once you finish!

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Creating Blog Content

Post Updated: 17/03/2021 By Andrew Smith 14 Comments

Today we are going to take a look at creating blog content within our site. It’s important to plan during the early stages of building a website. You should also have an idea of the subjects that it is going to cover.

Once you have an outline of what the site is going to contain, you should really ask yourself if you are able to talk about that subject confidently and for quite a long time? Also if there are other subject areas that you could branch off into in the future.

If you don’t already have a lot of knowledge about your chosen niche or subject matter, you must be prepared to do a lot of research. Gone are the days when websites with thin content are acceptable.

Creating Blog Content For Humans And Search Engines

Today you are not only writing for human eyes, you are also writing for Google. If you expect to receive free organic traffic, you will need to please the search engines. Today we are going to take a look at some of the areas that you need to be aware of when building content pages and posts for your website.

If you have a good knowledge of your subject matter then you will find this method really easy. You will be surprised how quickly you can expand your site.

Writing for humans and robots

When creating any kind of blog content its important to write your pages primarily for human eyes. What I mean by this is if you have gained even a basic knowledge of search engine optimization and using keywords within your text content, it can be really easy to lose focus of the fact that that you are actually speaking to someone and hopefully transferring valuable information to them via your website.

When Google takes a look at your website and decides where to rank you in the search engines, they are looking for the text and keywords that you have used. But they are also on the lookout for anyone who is attempting to manipulate the search results.

Focus On Keywords

Focusing your content on containing certain keywords is a good idea so long as this isn’t your primary objective. It’s far better when writing a page or a post to focus on just one main keyword. You can also focus on synonyms or related phrases throughout your content. If you are not sure how to optimize your posts and pages you should learn more about on-page SEO techniques.

Google knows when you are including keywords and phrases that are simply included for the sake of helping your rankings. So it’s far better to focus on including just one keyword per post that you want to rank for. When creating blog content the search engine optimization methods used within your pages should be invisible to the average reader. Your content should flow just like you are speaking with a friend.

The problems that we bloggers and website builders face!

The natural progression for any website or blog is to go through the beginning stages of development. The ideas phase, building the theme and the framework or the site, creating your first pages and posts. In the early days of building a website, things can be tricky especially when you have an image or an idea that you want to recreate on your site. But once you get that out of the way and you are happy with how things are looking, you actually get to concentrate on the content itself.

Getting to the stage where you can simply focus on creating blog content for your site is a great feeling. But then other questions arise! How often should I be creating content for my blog? Is my content good enough? And then comes the day that deep down you knew was coming… You have totally run out of ideas for new content! Luckily there is a really simple technique to help you develop further ideas. What’s great about this method is Google loves it too!

Creating blog content using the hyperlink technique

One of the on-page SEO factors that the search engines look for within any website is the internal linking structure of the site. Search engines like to see that we are creating relevant and related content within our website and linking from one page to another. Take a look at this example, within this very page…

The orange text shown here is a hyperlink, linking to an internal page that shows relevant content based on the text within the hyperlink.

The hyperlink in this example shows us linking from this very page that you are reading to another existing page. But what if you were to go back through your old posts? Would you find keywords, phrases or even product mentions that you have not yet created a post about?

Finding Inspiration In Old Posts

Whilst creating blog content we often talk about related subject matters that we never actually write a full post about. By going back and reading our old posts, its amazing what inspiration you can find!

This has a really good effect on your website. Because as you go back through your old content you can add new paragraphs. You can focus on linked content that talks about related content that you have already created and hyperlink them together. If the two pages are closely related you can add new content on both pages with links going back and forth.

This has the effect of making your older content fresh and more up to date. As well as increasing the chances of it being read more often by your readers. The more internal links you have going off to other relevant pages the easier it is for both your readers and Google to navigate.

Creating new content from old content is easy!

This technique really works well when you find a phrase or topic within your old content that you have not yet written a post about. If you can create a whole new article from an idea that you got from one of your old posts then you can link the two together.

If you are really lucky you might find a post or page within your site that you can get several ideas from. In this case, you would also be able to branch off from that page and create several new posts. You will be surprised at how many possibilities you can find just by reading through your own content.

Final Thoughts

Going back over your material is a great way of creating new blog content. Linking those articles will create a better site design and will give your readers a better experience overall. This also has the benefit of giving the search engines exactly what they want, which will definitely benefit you.

Please post your comments & Questions!

14 Top Tips For Choosing A Domain Name

Post Updated: 17/03/2021 By Andrew Smith 20 Comments

Today I’m going to show you how to go about choosing a domain name. So you have an idea for a blog or website and you are ready to start looking into buying a domain name. Today we are looking at what you should be aware of when thinking about buying a domain name. We’ll give you our top tips for getting your online asset off to a great start.

What To Look Out For When Choosing A Domain Name

Choosing a domain name is not always as simple as it sounds and the name of your website is often the very first impression that your site gives, so it’s something that shouldn’t be overlooked.

1 – Simplicity

When choosing a domain name you should ensure that the name of your site is something that is easy to remember and easy to type. If you have a complicated or long domain name, it’s likely that people will either just forget it or not bother to try and type it, if it’s too long or too complicated.

2 – Keep It Short

Two to three-word domains are ideal for most webmasters, although some of the best sites online are just one-word domains that are simple and easy to remember. Think of the search engines, Google, Bing and Yahoo. Simplicity in very few words is often the best way to achieve an easy to remember domain name.

3 – Consider Branding When Choosing A Domain Name

Depending on what sort of website or blog you are looking to create, forward planning could well be critical. If your brand is going to be an essential part of your website, then it’s something that you need to plan when selecting your domain name. What are the components of your brand, what will your brand name be and are you able to purchase that domain name?

4 – Does it have to be a dot com?

There are people that have argued for a long time that dot com domains are the best. We are here today to clear up the facts! In terms of search engine optimization, a dot com domain is no better than any other type of domain extension. The major benefit of having a dot com domain is the fact that it’s generally the first thing that people think of when searching for a specific site.

5 – Should I choose one of the New Domain TLD’s?

There are now loads of new top-level domain extensions, or TLD’s that you can choose from. Google has confirmed that they will treat these domain names in exactly the same way that they would treat any other type of domain. This gives anyone looking to purchase a new domain a whole range of branding choices and the ability to purchase domain names that might otherwise not be available. For further help with this subject visit our page on: Which domain extension should I choose? (opens in a new window).

6 – No Numbers or Hyphens!

Unless numbers and/or hyphens are required as part of a clever way to make people remember your website, then don’t use them. In general, adding numbers and hyphens to your domain name just makes the name longer, more complicated to remember and harder to type. When choosing a domain name that is similar to another that already exists, never add numbers or hyphens just to make the domain available.

7 – Make It Easy To Type and Spell

Some niches use specific terms or phrases only used within that particular niche or circle. It’s often really good to use niche-specific terms or words within your domain name, but are they easy to spell for everybody? Making your domain name easy to spell and easy to type is a consideration that you should think about, especially if you are using special words or even a made-up word that you might be using to brand your site. Is your domain easy to type and spell?

8 – Be the One and Only

Wherever possible you should try to choose a domain name that is totally unique to you. This will save confusion when your visitors try to remember your site name and try to return to your website. If your name is very similar to another site, you could end up losing some of your traffic, even worse you could be giving traffic away.

9 – Copyright

When selecting a domain name it is very important that you do your research and ensure that you are not breaking copyright laws. If you are in any doubt, don’t purchase the domain! Go back to the drawing board and think again rather than risking the future of your online business.

10 – Keywords

Your domain name should say something about the site that the user is about to visit. When choosing a domain name you may wish to consider using a keyword or phrase that is associated with the niche that your website is targeting. Although targeting keywords within a domain name has very little impact on the search engine optimization of your site these days, using a well-known niche phrase can often make your site more memorable.

11 – Target Your Locality

You might want to consider targeting your local area if you are creating a website for a local community or particular country. Even if you are just creating a personal blog, it’s worth considering the opportunity to perhaps add your location to your domain name, either as a prefix or suffix. For example, you might choose something like “The Las-Vegas Blogger” or “Blogging Las Vegas”, you get the idea?

12 – Does your domain name deliver?

It’s important that your domain name actually delivers what it promises too. Depending on the subject of your site, you need to choose a domain name that captures what your site is all about. Visitors won’t stay around on your website for long if they look at your domain name and expect one thing but get another. If your domain name suggests that the website is all about “golf training” then that is what the visitor should find within the site.

13 – Don’t buy a domain for traffic purposes

A couple of years ago, people would buy domain names for their exact match high traffic keywords. Buying a domain name just for the purpose of ranking an exact keyword phrase is a little out of date now and should not be considered. You can still purchase exact match keyword domains, but don’t expect any special treatment from the search engines.

14 – Do Your Research When Choosing A Domain Name

If you are purchasing a brand new domain name you will not have any issues here. However, if you are buying a domain name that has been used previously used then it’s essential that you do your research and ensure that the domain has not been used for anything unethical in the past.

I would love to hear what you have to say about this article! Do you have any experiences or questions that you would like to share? Just enter them in the comment box down below and I will reply or assist you in any way that I can!

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Which Domain Extension Should I Use?

Post Updated: 17/03/2021 By Andrew Smith 8 Comments

The domain extension or TLD (top-level domain) as it is sometimes referred to, is the small section at the end of an internet address. The most popular and recognizable domain extension to this day is of course the .com domain extension.

But which domain extension is the best choice for your website or blog? Which domain extension is best for SEO? And should you consider considering a country-specific domain?

Domain name extensions – What you need to know

For quite some time there have been disagreements as to whether or not a specific domain extension has a better or worse effect on a website in terms of SEO and how well the site will rank in the search engines as a result. There are many people that still believe that in order to have the best chance of success online, then you must have either a dot com, net or dot org domain name.

There are many people that claim that in terms of SEO, the dot com is the most powerful, followed by the dot net and then dot org extensions. At some stage in the past there may have been some truth in this statement, but today things are rather different. One of the things that we are going to be looking at right here, is why this statement is just a myth now.

In order to understand which domain extension is best for your blog or website, it is important to understand a little bit about how the search engines work.

How Search Works in relation to the domain name

Search engines like Google and Bing are constantly changing the way that they deliver search results to the public. The main goal of the search engine is to present the right information to the right people. This means that they need to look at many different factors in order to determine where we rank within the search results and who gets to see us.

In order to decide where you will appear in the search results, Google looks for clues within your domain name, the descriptions that you give to your web pages and most importantly the content within your site.

The search engines use an algorithm to quickly scan the pages on your site, checking hundreds of factors that build up a picture of how relevant your site is and where it should show up within the search results. Your domain name is just one factor.

Which domain extension is best for SEO?

Although some people will still disagree with me, there is not one single domain extension that is better than any other. In fact, Google has confirmed that they do not consider any type of domain to be better in terms of SEO. The only time when the domain extension will play a very small part in terms of SEO is when the domain extension is a local one, like .co.UK for the UK or .us for the United States.

Country Domain Extensions

Do you want your website or blog to target a specific location rather than targeting a worldwide audience? If so then perhaps you should consider using specific country domain extensions. As we have already said, the search engines will look for clues as to what and where you are targeting within your domain name and content.

Whilst using a country-specific domain name extension will not ensure that you rank well for that given location, it will give the search engine an indication that it’s your aim to serve viewers in that area.

So does this mean that websites with country domain extensions rank better locally? No, it doesn’t. You could have two shops in New Zealand, one called “PetesPetShop.NZ” and one called “mikespetshop.com” and neither one would be better than the other in terms of SEO. Where these websites show up within the search results would depend mainly on the content within the website, but also on lots of other ranking factors. Google will take the location of the business into consideration as a ranking factor if it deems it necessary and will present local results to local searchers, regardless of the domain extension.

Which Domain Extension Should I Use For My Site/Blog?

There are a few things that you need to think about when choosing a domain. It’s true that a lot of people will naturally search for a .com domain if typing in the URL of a business. However, most people are now aware that there are tons of different domain extensions and the best way to get good information is just to use a search engine. There is hardly any benefit to choosing a domain or its extension for SEO purposes as we have said and there is barley and value in choosing a domain based on it is available under a country domain extension.

So what about branding? A dot com or dot net domain can look very professional but with the volume of websites being created every day, it’s sometime very difficult to get the domain name that you want.

There are now new domain extensions that help not only with the problem of not being able to find the right domain name but also with finding yourself a “brand”.

New Domain Extensions

There are now hundreds of new domain extensions that are available for public use. Some are specific to certain niches or local areas, whilst others have much broader use. One of the great benefits of these new domain extensions is that we can finally purchase a name that otherwise would not be available to us. At this website, we have used a .zone domain extension as part of the name for our website: www.MakeMoneyOnline.Zone

There is a growing list of new domain extensions that are being added to constantly. You can check out the list of new domain extensions at Godaddy.

How Will Google Treat The New Domain Extensions?

As we have already covered, there is no real SEO benefit to choosing one domain extension over another. What will determine the success of your website is the content within. Again Google have confirmed this to be the case.

Conclusion – Which Domain Extension Should You Choose?

When choosing your domain name and extension there are a few things to consider. Do you want your website to be a brand or a name that people will recognize? Perhaps one of the new domain extensions could help you get the name that you want? Do you want your website to be specifically for people in a certain part of the world? If so, you might want to consider a country domain extension.

You should however avoid purchasing a domain name just because the name is available under a country-specific extension. Buying a dot “NZ” domain might be confusing for people if you are targeting buyers in the UK for example.

Most importantly, don’t buy a dot com, net or dot org domain just because you think it will do better within the search engines. It won’t!

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