Remote Pinging Tools
This is an Advanced feature and you are NOT required to use it unless you wish to use Remote Pinging.
You only need to use Remote Pinging if you want the added layer of caution from having a single IP possibly blocked by pinging services for too many consecutive calls from a single IP address and you decide to have Content Farmer Pro™ ping for you. Another option is to ping from your blog or website by configuring your blog software to notify the ping services.
Content Farmer Pro™ uses a complex calculation to randomize pinging across multiple web servers to reduce the chance of footprinting and IP blocking by ping services. This is accomplished through the distribution of a remote_pinger.php file to multiple web servers in which you have access.
IMPORTANT: You MUST download the the remote_pinger.php file by clicking the "Download Remote Script" button in the Remote Pinging Tools section. Then you MUST upload the remote_pinger.php script to your chosen web servers.
Using the remote_pinger.php script
- For each project you want to use pinging be sure you have the Ping List option checked once the project is loaded,and have entered all desired ping URL(s) into the respective box.
- Determine the number of hosts and enter that number into the Remote Pinging Installs box (under the settings tab).
- Click the "Download Remote Script" and be sure to save the file as remote_pinger.php.
- Upload remote_pinger.php to each of the hosts you plan to use. Put the remote_pinger.php file in public_html or the top level folder where you store your other web pages.
- Setup crons on the REMOTE SERVERS to run at times of your choosing (once per day recommended) and call the remote_pinger.php file. You may need to ask your hosting company for the proper pathing to use when using cron jobs.
CAUTION: remote_pinger.php uses security which depends on your database password. If you change your database password, you must download remote_pinger.php again and re-do step 3 Reset Cache.
Content Farmer Pro™ keeps a running list of blogs to ping. When one of the remote scripts authenticates itself to your Content Farmer Pro™ installation, Content Farmer Pro™ determines how many of the URLs on it's list need to be pinged and passes just enough information to the remote script to offload some of that work. It then removes those URLs from it's list and waits for the next remote script call.
If Content Farmer Pro™ is in the middle of using it's current pinging list and you add another ping to one of your projects (or a new project), that new item will not be picked up until it finishes it's current list (or midnight, whichever is sooner). If you absolutely cannot wait, click the "Reset Cache" button and the list will be reset. The side effect is that those items which had already been marked off the list for today will now be added back to the list and an additional ping generated.
Remote Pinging Overview
Here's a scenario pinging Pingomatic, using 9 urls, and 3 remote scripts set to run at 5:00 a.m.,3:00 p.m., and 11:00 p.m. (that is, each script runs once per day at one of those times). When the first remote script calls in at 5:00 am Content Farmer Pro™ creates a list, determines that this remote server should ping for 3 of the urls, and sends those 3 urls back to the server and crosses those urls off of it's list.
Now, when the second script calls in at 3:00 p.m., Content Farmer Pro™ grabs 3 more urls from it's list, sends them out, and marks them off the list, as shown in the figure below.
When the last script calls in at 11:00 p.m., the final 3 urls are sent out and the list is now empty. The next time script 1 calls in, the list will be reset (grabbing any new projects/blogs) and another 3 urls will be chosen at random.
OK. That was a lot. What does it mean? Well, with the setup as described in the example above, Pingomatic will be pinged for each of the 9 blogs, 3 at a time, from 3 different IP's (assuming each script is hosted on a different IP), and 3 different times a day. The work has been split across the servers and each url is pinged at different times from each remote script.