Smart Update Pinger replaces WordPress’ built-in update ping functionality. Instead of always pinging when saving a post, the plugin only pings when the post has not previously been published. Edits of posts are “silent”, in contrast with the default behaviour. Also, you can see a log for the latest pings, together with error messages (in the options page).
Motivation: “update pings” to blog services includes the URL of your blog, not of a specific post. You should only ping when you have added a new post to your blog since there is no way of telling which post was edited and caused the blog tool (WordPress) to ping. If you edit several already published posts, everyone will cause a new ping frenzy, unless you have Smart Update Pinger installed. You don’t want to be banned for pingspamming, do you?
As of version 2.0, WordPress’ built-in ping functions are ignored. Instead, a copy of that code, with some improvements, has been put inside this plugin. This was necessary to give detailed log reports. You can see which services accepted and rejected your ping, and why.
Another new functionality in 2.0 is the “Ping Services Now!” button in the options page, which lets you ping all services without writing a post. Should come in handy if there are problems.
Try this ping plugin if you need more functionality.
Japanese version available here.
WordPress 1.5/2.0 Support
If you’re still using WordPress 1.5.x, you must use the older version of Smart Update Pinger. This version will not work properly on WordPress 2.x, so make sure you have the right version of Smart Update Pinger.
Installation
- Download the zip archive
- Extract the PHP file from the archive
- Put it in your wp-content/plugins directory
- Make sure WordPress/PHP can write to the wp-content directory (chmod 777)
- Activate it in the Administration Panel
- Review the options in Options/Smart Update Pinger (Optional step. By default your previously chosen services will be pinged.)
It should also be possible to use one-click install through the WordPress Plugin Manager, but I have not been able to confirm this.
Known Issues
- Future posts will not get pinged at all. Not when you publish it, and not when it becomes visible. No solution available.
- If you save drafts with a timestamp, and later publish them, they will not get pinged. Solution: Don’t add timestamps to drafts.
- If you see ‘Error message: “parse error. not well formed”‘ in the log, this means that the ping service responded with an unknown message. It probably doesn’t receive pings. Solution: Remove the ping service from your list, if the problem persists.
- If you have saved drafts with WordPress 1.5, and you publish them with WordPress 2.0, they won’t get pinged. Solution: Look in the log entries, and force a ping if needed.
Version History
- 2.0: February 18 2006 (WordPress 2.0 support, a ping log and a “force ping button”)
- 1.2: July 25 2005 (manages settings better)
- 1.1: July 24 2005 (minor changes)
- 1.0: July 18 2005