Question on Pinging a address ,how testing sites get away with it and just making a request for service.

I managed to ask the entire question I think in the title of this thread.Lol. I always wondered how websites that will ping other servers in online test get away with doing this. Do they have an arrangement with their ISP? Also ,what if you just run a series trying services on all of the common ports? Wouldn't this achieve the same thing as a ping if the tested computer did not respond?

Thanks for your expertise!