Server does not allow ping - Help!

[stuff_4_beauty]

My new server does not allow pinging of the websites on the server including the server - Can this hurt my SE rankings? We rank excellent, but I JUST changed hosts a couple days ago - If someone could shed some light on this for me, I would really appreciate help because I am now worried.

Thanks so much!

[mikesmith76]

I may be completely wrong but I can't imagine how not being able to ping a server would affect your rankings. I'm interested to hear the outcome of this

[stuff_4_beauty]

My server says it will not matter - a helpful user on this forum says it may matter... anyone have any experiences with this issue? I am still concerned as I do not want to have anything hurt our rankings. Thanks!!

[mikesmith76]

The more I think of it the more I can see a reason why it may hurt your rankings, but only if search engine bots perform a ping before trying to crawl your site. After all ping tells you nothing more than if a server is at a specific ip address and responding.However i've heard that a number of hosts are set up not to respond to ping requests, do they all have a problem? I don't know for sure either way, maybe someone else on here will

[Hurga]

I think he's talking about blog pings, rather than old school pure-awesomeness pings, yah?

I think you have to have a special server set up to receive the pings, but your blogging software should be able to send a ping to an outside server (ie: technorati) no problem. The server you host on doesn't have to be able to receive blog pings.

[mikesmith76]

what on earth is a blog ping?????

[stuff_4_beauty]

I just spoke with my new host and there is a firewall that stops pinging and also tracert requests. I wonder if this will not matter in getting the search engine bots on my site. My old host had awstats and the new one has urchin - I do not see on urchin how to get raw access logs like on awstats - I am still concerned. Does anyone know if google, msn, or yahoo pings a website before crawling it?

Thanks

[cyanide]

Originally Posted by stuff_4_beauty

My new server does not allow pinging of the websites on the server including the server - Can this hurt my SE rankings? We rank excellent, but I JUST changed hosts a couple days ago - If someone could shed some light on this for me, I would really appreciate help because I am now worried.

stuff4beauty, I answered the issue about server pinging
It's nothing to worry about

Don't freak out, otherwise you'll get other people freaking out...

[Hurga]

blog pings are just update notifications for blog indexes using RSS feeds. You set your blog to "ping" an index, such as technorati or blo.gs, each time you publish a new article. They in turn update with links to your new articles found in your feed.

[stuff_4_beauty]

Thank-you for all the support!!!

I just saw where you already responded to the pinging issue - sorry about that, it has been a very hectic last 24 hours since I moved.

Yes, the server has that closed off they said for security issues - Yes, I was freaking out - every other site I try to ping, I can ping just fine. I am still very concerned only because I do not want the issue to block any bots. I have been searching and digging for any srticles or info on this, and no luck yet.

Anyone have any positive proof that the SE will still be able to crawl my site fine?

Thanks again!

[cyanide]

ok no problem,

Proof? - that might be tough.

However, I've got numerous servers in 5 locations and am constantly shifting clients between servers and have never had a complaint about a significant drop in serps because of it.

Really, I wouldn't worry

[ADAM Web Design]

Ping my website (www.adamwebdesign.ca). You won't get a response.

http://search.yahoo.com/search?ei=ut...20web%20design (#3)

http://search.msn.com/results.aspx?q...NH&srch_type=0 (#1).

Hopefully, that will make you feel better.

[Faglork]

Originally Posted by stuff_4_beauty

Anyone have any positive proof that the SE will still be able to crawl my site fine?

Just set up a "spider catcher" - a little program which sends you a mail when a spider visits the page ... I've posted the code numerous times.

faglork

[stuff_4_beauty]

That sounds like what I need - I have scanned through your 767 posts looking for a code, but 30 minutes later and no luck - do you have a clue about where it might be at? I want to try it.

Thanks!

[Faglork]

Well,

I don't mind posting it again, so here goes:

<? 
if(eregi("googlebot",$HTTP_USER_AGENT)) 
  { 
  if ($QUERY_STRING != "") 
    {$url = "http://".$SERVER_NAME.$PHP_SELF.'?'.$QUERY_STRING;} 
  else 
    {$url = "http://".$SERVER_NAME.$PHP_SELF;} 
  $today = date("F j, Y, g:i a"); 
  mail("me@here.com", "Googlebot detected on http://$SERVER_NAME", "$today - Google crawled $url"); 
  } 
?>

Just change it to suit. Save it as somename.php, and embed it into the pages either via PHP include or SSI include, like

hth,
faglork

[stuff_4_beauty]

I appreciate it!