How to Ping Any Website or Computer

If you’ve ever spent much time around IT professionals, you’ll have undoubtedly heard the word “ping” used. Pinging a computer or website has many different uses. It can help you measure the speed of a connection, connect to another computer or website to learn about its status, or troubleshoot network issues.

It might sound complicated, but it’s not. Anyone can send a ping; you don’t need to be a skilled hacker or a coding genius. In this short article, we’re going to show you how to ping another website.

How to Ping Any Website or Computer

On Windows, Mac, and Linux, you initiate the ping process from the command line. On Windows, that’s Command Prompt, and on Mac and Linux, you need the Terminal app.

Once you’re looking at the command line, type one of the following two commands for a simple ping:

ping [web URL]

ping [IP address]

From this point, you can tweak the command further depending on which operating system you’re using. Use the web URL version if you want to ping a website, and use the IP address version if you want to ping a computer.

For example, on Windows, the default ping will send a single message. On Linux, the ping is continuous. To run a continuous ping on Windows, type ping -t [web address] or ping -t [IP address].

Understanding the Results of a Ping

The results show a few key pieces of information. At the most basic level, pay attention to these four numbers:

• Time: How long it took to send and receive the ping
• TTL: Lets you establish the number of networks the ping passed through
• Packets: The number sent and received should be identical
• Round-Trip Time: The minimum, maximum, and average time it took the ping. A large difference between the three figures indicates an unstable network

If you’d like to learn how to master the command line on Windows, Mac, and Linux, we have got you covered.

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