Ping is a command that sends packets to a device.
The device is supposed to respond.
you can try pinging your router first. to do this you type
ping <router address>
you can find your router address by typing ipconfig, it'll be listed as gateway.
it shoudl look something like this when you are done.
C:\>ping 192.168.1.1
Pinging 192.168.1.1 with 32 bytes of data:
Reply from 192.168.1.1: bytes=32 time=1ms TTL=64
Reply from 192.168.1.1: bytes=32 time=1ms TTL=64
Reply from 192.168.1.1: bytes=32 time=2ms TTL=64
Reply from 192.168.1.1: bytes=32 time=1ms TTL=64
Ping statistics for 192.168.1.1:
Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 4, Lost = 0 (0% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
Minimum = 1ms, Maximum = 2ms, Average = 1ms
C:\>ping 8.8.8.8
Pinging 8.8.8.8 with 32 bytes of data:
Reply from 8.8.8.8: bytes=32 time=100ms TTL=37
Reply from 8.8.8.8: bytes=32 time=100ms TTL=37
Reply from 8.8.8.8: bytes=32 time=93ms TTL=37
Reply from 8.8.8.8: bytes=32 time=97ms TTL=37
Ping statistics for 8.8.8.8:
Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 4, Lost = 0 (0% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
Minimum = 93ms, Maximum = 100ms, Average = 97ms
C:\>
the address 8.8.8.8 is just a publicly available DNS server operated by google that will respond to ping requests. (and it's an easy address to remember.
Pinging your gateway, (in my case 192.168.1.1 will confirm that you are still actually connected to your router, pinging 8.8.8.8 will confirm that you are connected to the internet)
if both these tests work but you're still having problems try typing
ping google.com