As a blogger, traveling around the internet and visiting the blogs of others is all part of a days work. This is how you stay in touch with fellow bloggers and build relationships. It is also how you learn.

Recently, I came across a post entitled 11 Things to do after installing WordPress by Staff Writer Firas Steitiyeh over at Mike’s Life. The title caught my eye and of course I wondered what the 11 things were and if I had done them all.

As I read the article, which was very well written by the way, I felt like I was in good shape on this particular topic. But as I neared the bottom, there was the 11^th thing to do, install the MaxBlogPress Ping Optimizer plugin. I had never heard of it and wondered how it functioned and what benefits it provided.

As it turns out, I’ve been needing this plugin without even knowing that I needed it. After reading this article, you may find that you need it as well.

Here’s what happens

When you write a new post for your WordPress blog, if you’re like me you’re going to have a few edits. You proofread and catch the typos you see and prepare to publish. As a part of that process I always preview the article in a browser so I can see what the final version looks like.

When the document is published WordPress pings the various update services on your list, letting them know you have fresh content. What I was unaware of was the fact that WordPress’ software also pings each time you have an edit after publishing.

This means that when you catch another typo or have to make a change, the entire list of update services is pinged again. You have 2 maybe 3 edits after publishing and that’s how many pings will be sent to the update services.

As you can imagine, this is not a good thing. The continual pinging from your home page address tends to make you look like a spammer. Enough of these annoyances and some of the update services may even block your updates.

This is where the MaxBlogPress Optimizer plugin comes in. The problem is corrected with the use of this plugin as it pings but once alerting the update services so you can get indexed. No more excessive pinging and the associated risk of being banned.

According to the MaxBlogPress website a few other model of plugins designed to address this problem have stopped working because of the change in ping codes within WordPress 2.1 and above.

• Smart Update Pinger
• Ping Fix
• WP Cron Future Ping

If you are using any of these you may want to check into updates or replacement.

Since installing this plugin I have enjoyed peace of mind knowing that I no longer run the risk of excessive pinging.

You can read about it and download the free MaxBlogPress plugin here.