What is the use of to_ping and pinged column?

  • to_ping is a list of URLs WordPress should send pingbacks to.
  • pinged is a list of URLs WordPress has sent pingbacks to.

Do not use these fields for something else. They are parsed many times in core code (69 matches for to_ping); their format is fixed.

You cannot reduce the query load by using these fields, because all post meta fields are fetched in one rush per post. So it doesn’t matter if there is one more or less.

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