A Ping List is basically a list of resources which your WordPress blog can automatically contact to inform them your blog has new content, these are generally directories, search engines and sites that link to your articles, such as blog directories.
A few years ago you would see some traffic coming from the sources you’re notified of your new content which is always a bonus, but in 2010 does the ping list still have a place and does it warrant our time?
Most of the recommended Ping Lists contain a large number of services which simply do not exist anymore, just leaving links such as Google blog search that still are functional. Even Technorati and Yahoo have stopped accepting pings and even some of Google’s ping servers have ceased to accept them, so should we stop sending them?
Even services like Ping-O-Matic (http://pingomatic.com) whilst I can certainly see its benefits as a resource can be somewhat temperamental at times, and the end result I personally have seen no benefit from. For instance when was the last time you got a clickthough from PubSub or Collecta for example?
In my personal experience I have found my articles are quickly indexed by the search engines within an hour of posting so should I really still be concerned about my Ping List? I could be gung-ho and point blank refuse to use a ping list but would I be cutting off my nose to spite my face?
I personally feel the Ping List is dead and it’s something we should move on and forget about, but for all those who are still on the fence just leave your pinglist set to rpc.pingomatic.com just in case! It is a subject that I have spent some time researching of late, so I would love to hear the WPZine’s readers point of view on this.