PING primarily uses the Internet Control Message Protocol (ICMP) for network communication. ICMP is a protocol used to transmit control messages between IP hosts and routers, providing mechanisms for error reporting and data transmission requests.
When you run the PING command in the command line with a target IP address or domain specified, your system sends an ICMP Echo Request message to the target system. The target system then responds by sending an ICMP Echo Reply message.
For example, if I run ping google.com, my computer sends an ICMP Echo Request message to Google's server. If everything is normal, Google's server replies with an ICMP Echo Reply.
This process helps users detect connectivity between two network nodes and the corresponding response time. PING can help diagnose network connection issues and detect network latency.