How To Ping Your Web Host or Site

Ping is a simple utility that is used to check if a server is active and responding, and if it is, how long it is taking packets of information to travel from your computer to the destination server. Packets are small blocks of data (often 32 bytes of information), the sending is then are checked to ensure that the data is transfered accurately. In addition to the time statistics provided, you will also receive the IP address of your destination. This can be usefull in tracking domain name issues by ensuring that the domain is pointing to the correct IP address.

Using Ping in MS DOS

For Windows users, ping is already setup to run in the MS DOS window. To use Ping, open an MS DOS window, and type 'ping domainname.com' (without the quotes) and press [ENTER]. You should see something that looks similar to the following:

C:\WINDOWS>ping amberhost.com

Pinging amberhost.com [69.93.128.7] with 32 bytes of data:

Reply from 69.93.128.7: bytes=32 time=140ms TTL=47
Reply from 69.93.128.7: bytes=32 time=160ms TTL=47
Reply from 69.93.128.7: bytes=32 time=155ms TTL=47
Reply from 69.93.128.7: bytes=32 time=145ms TTL=47

Ping statistics for 69.93.128.7:
Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 4, Lost = 0 (0% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
Minimum = 140ms, Maximum = 160ms, Average = 150ms

This tells you that the AmberHost server is up and running, and that the average time it took 32 bytes of data to travel from your computer to amberhost.com, and back is 140ms.