I recently was asked a simple question by a client and though I would post the answer.  What is pinging and why is my blog not instantly number #1 for my article?

Pinging is a push technology that notifies another web site (usually a blog directory, search engine or another blog) that your blog has been updated.  However, it is not to be confused with ranking.  Just because you have notified other blogs, search engines, or directories that your blog is updated does not mean that you will be #1, or even on the first page, of Google.

So where does your document Rank?  Whether your blog ranks high immediately in Google, or even within a week, will be dependent on two main criteria.

First, the overall relevancy of your article based on Google text matching of the full document. Does your article actually speak about what the person is searching for?  If your document is relevant, then Google will rank your document against all other relevant documents.

Second, Google ranks documents that are relevant by it’s PageRank algorithm.  PageRank is an algorithm of more than 200 signals to determine how to rank that document.  “PageRank also considers the importance of each page that casts a vote, as votes from some pages are considered to have greater value, thus giving the linked page greater value.”

While there are many signals to consider, the bottom line that you need to know is that PageRank is mainly based upon who is linking to your document.  Is anyone linking to your document, or even your web site?  If no, then you need to get the word out and get people to link to your site and most importantly that specific document.  The more people you get, then generally speaking the higher you will rank.