Written on September 30th, 2007 at 12:09 am by Darren Rowse

Which WordPress Plugins Do You Use?

Blogging Tools and Services 108 comments

Wordpress-Plugins-1A quick question for WordPress users:



WordPress Plugins – which ones do you use?

18 months ago in a post titled (I’ll show you mine if you show me yours) I shared the WP Plugins I used and asked readers to tell us which WordPress plugins they used. The response was great and I then compiled a list of WordPress Plugins for ProBloggers which summarized everyone’s favorite WP Plugins.

That was a year and a half ago so today I thought it might be time to do the exercise again.

I’ll kick us off with a few of my personal favorite WordPress Plugins and then will open it up for you to submit yours:

  • Ad Rotator – this is what rotates the 468 x 60 ads that you see at the top of ProBlogger.
  • AdSense Deluxe – for inserting AdSense (and other types of ads) into posts
  • Akismet – comment spam filtering (which has stopped just under 2 million comment spams on ProBlogger since I installed it).
  • Democracy – Poll plugin (the one I currently use here at ProBlogger in the sidebar)
  • Landing Sites – I have used this off and on with my blogs – it greats readers arriving from search engines with suggestions for further reading
  • Popularity Contest - a modified version of this runs the ‘Best of ProBlogger’ section on the front page of ProBlogger
  • Random Redirect – a cool little plugin that I use on DPS offer readers a random post from my archives (people do actually use it)
  • Related Posts - not the sexiest plugin but pure gold at driving people deeper into your blog (also good for SEO)
  • Share This – a plugin that lets your readers share your post via email or social bookmarking
  • Subscribe to Comments – used by quite a few ProBlogger readers to track comments left on posts

One WordPress Plugin that I’m keen to experiment with in the coming months:

So now it is over to you. Which WordPress Plugins do you classify as your favorites?

Please limit your answer to 10 if you can (if you have more – get it down to your 10 ‘must have plugins’). I’ll compile a summary of all the plugins submitted in a week or two. Stay tuned to ProBlogger’s RSS feed to be notified of that post.

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108 Responses to “Which WordPress Plugins Do You Use?” - Add Yours

  • Yannick Eckl

    September 30th, 2007 12:31 am

    Nice “poll”. I`ll write about it on yannickeckl.com – but there are only a few plugins..
    anyway..Great idea!

  • Jared

    September 30th, 2007 12:34 am

    Askimet
    Better Comments Manager
    Google Sitemaps
    MyVideo
    SEO Title Tag
    Similar Posts
    WP Post Ratings – Am thinking about getting rid of this one.

  • Jeremy Killian

    September 30th, 2007 12:36 am

    Thanks for the tip about Democracy! I’ve been looking for a better polling solution than PollDaddy…love the look, but the PollDaddy code makes my feed go wonky.

    Love Gregarious. Great plugin.

  • Woodshed

    September 30th, 2007 12:47 am

    Dagon Design’s Sitemap Generator (http://www.dagondesign.com/) is a must when sorting posts by date doesn’t cut it.

  • Shankar Ganesh

    September 30th, 2007 12:47 am

    Hey People!

    Here are my favourite WordPress plugins:

    All in One SEO is my most favourite WordPress plugin. It’s got all SEO related options.

    Next comes Full Text Feed plugin. In case I’m using the tag on my posts, this plugin will prevent the more tag from being added to the RSS feed, so no chances of partial feeds due to the use of post excerpts.

    3. FeedBurner FeedSmith Redirects original feed to FeedBurner feed.

    4. Live – Monitor blog traffic real time.

    5. – A plugin I use for easy navigation inside the Admin panel.

  • Shankar Ganesh

    September 30th, 2007 12:50 am

    Err.. I missed to link to the fifth one – it’s the Lighter Admin Drop Down Menus Plugin – http://www.italyisfalling.com/lighter-admin-drop-menus-wordpress-plugin

  • Steve McGrath

    September 30th, 2007 12:52 am

    I needed to do a poll for my next promotion after the current contest and will check Democracy out.

    One I like is “Live”.
    It list the 16 last pages viewed and referrer in real time.

    Thanks for the list

  • Jon

    September 30th, 2007 12:53 am

    The two most useful plugins that I have discovered lately are:
    1. Instant Upgrade – which allows one-click WordPress version upgrades.
    2. PlugInstaller – which allows you to install and upgrade plugins without ftp (just put the .zip file address in and click).

  • Joe

    September 30th, 2007 1:09 am

    Hey Darren,
    WWSGD is well worth adding, it sure helped me increase subscribers almost right away.
    A couple I really like:
    Filosofo Uncheck Default Category is simple, but elegant, it unchecks that nasty uncategorized thingy when you click a different cat.
    In-Series this one helps keep a series at clickable access to each post that is part of that series.
    Just 2 that I find really useful behind the scenes.

  • Martin Neumann

    September 30th, 2007 1:10 am

    Some of the plugins I use that make my blogging a little easier…

    - Admin Drop Menu
    - Better Comments Manager
    - Clean Archives Reloaded
    - Live Comment Preview
    - 404 Notifier

  • Martin Neumann

    September 30th, 2007 1:10 am

    Some of the plugins I use that make my blogging a little easier…

    - Admin Drop Menu
    - Better Comments Manager
    - Clean Archives Reloaded
    - WP-Cats
    - Live Comment Preview
    - 404 Notifier

  • shery2102

    September 30th, 2007 1:11 am

    Admin Drop Down Menu: By Ozh http://planetozh.com/
    WP-Polls, WP-PageNavi, WP-PostViews, WP-UserOnline: By GaMerZ http://www.lesterchan.net/blogs
    Gravatars: By Kip Bond http://zenpax.com/gravatars2/
    Terong Related Links: By Erwin Kodiat http://www.terong.com

  • Travis

    September 30th, 2007 1:11 am

    I like the all-in-one bookmarking button plugin from socialmarker.com – It’s a good alternative to the “share this” button, since it’s a little more obvious to people who aren’t as familiar with social bookmarking. Might not matter, but can’t hurt. I’ve also fiddled with Gregarious a little – it combines the share this button with a digg button, or whatever else you’d like.

    Instant Upgrade is a nice, easy way to upgrade your wordpress installation.

    Subscribe to comments is essential, in my opinion.

    I use WWSGD, and I think it has good potential.

    Ultimate Google Analytics makes stats nice and easy.

    And finally, Wordpress Text Ads by Alex Choo has good potential for cutting out the middleman on text link ad sales.

  • Martin Neumann

    September 30th, 2007 1:15 am

    sorry for the double comment :-) – my bad! patience is a virtue when your broadband crawls to an almost halt… ;-)

  • Kidblogger :: Carl Ocab

    September 30th, 2007 1:15 am

    Darren, nice idea and it’s pretty cool to see what plugins you use.

    Although, can we submit old posts? Because some blogs I know and even I have posted this long ago.

    Anyway, here’s mine:
    http://www.carlocab.com/top-10-best-wordpress-plugins-according-to-me/

  • Simonne

    September 30th, 2007 1:21 am

    WP-Ajax-Edit-Comments: http://www.raproject.com/wordpress/wp-ajax-edit-comments/ – it allows commenters to edit their own comment within a period of time specified by the blog admin.

    Recommendit: http://www.webministerium.de/artikel/32/recommendit.html – it allows readers to recommend posts they liked to new readers (you can see this is action in my blog’s sidebar)

  • Barry

    September 30th, 2007 1:22 am

    I’ve got most of those, but I am thinking of replacing “What woudl seth godin do” now that I have Who See Ads up and running:

    - Who Sees Ads – useful for a lot more than displaying ads
    - Show top commentators
    - Get recent comments
    - Full text feed
    - aLinks
    - Samsarin PHP Widget
    - Share this

  • Thilo

    September 30th, 2007 1:22 am

    I’m using

    All in on Seo package – for my seo
    Google Sitemaps – creats automaticly sitemaps very usefull

  • Rea Maor

    September 30th, 2007 1:23 am

    Landing Sites is one of the BEST plugins out there, shame that no one got to develop it a little more.

  • Patrix

    September 30th, 2007 1:24 am

    If you don’t mind clicking through to my site where I maintain a colophon page. I have listed all the plugins there. As you will see, I’m quite a plugin whore :)

  • Greg Butler

    September 30th, 2007 1:29 am

    My favorite is the plugin that creates a drop cap for the first letter of each post. I never thought it was possible, but it is so easy!

  • Wendy Piersall

    September 30th, 2007 1:32 am

    ALL IN ONE SEO is AMAZING!!! Definitely a must install! (Sorry for shouting, but it’s my new blogging infatuation).

    -FeedSmith to be sure that FeedBurner is tracking all RSS subscribers
    -Google Sitemaps
    -Head Meta Description (if you don’t put in a manual page description with All in one SEO it will take the first sentence or so and make it your description

  • Travis

    September 30th, 2007 1:32 am

    Greg, maybe you could share with us the name of the plugin?

  • boringman

    September 30th, 2007 1:37 am

    whoa… thank you..
    I think I will use some of this plug ins ..
    I used spam karma for spamming ..
    And top commentator plug ins..

  • Vincent Chow

    September 30th, 2007 1:48 am

    Some of my plugins that I consider important:
    AdSense Deluxe
    Akismet
    Executable PHP widget
    Feedburner Feed Replacement
    Full Text Feed
    Redirect Old Slugs
    runPHP
    Show Top Commentators

    AdSense Deluxe is a must though. I just discovered Admin Drop Menus from the previous comment. Installed it and is loving it. Thanks guys for sharing.

  • Nizam

    September 30th, 2007 1:48 am

    Ultimate Tag warrior – I still using this than latest 2.3 build-in

    All in one SEO – Make my life easier to insert meta thingy

    Extended Live Archive – AJAXy archive for better digging old post. check my archive page for example

  • Lori

    September 30th, 2007 2:26 am

    My most favorite plugin is the ONECLICK INSTALL!! I LOVE it:) I use others but that one makes getting the others a breeze.

  • Brian Auer

    September 30th, 2007 2:27 am

    My #1 must-have plugin:

    ** WP-Cache — It will save your butt in periods of traffic spikes, plus it will make your webhost happier.

    Some others:

    * Google Sitemaps Generator
    * Optimal Title
    * Feedburner Feedsmith
    * Related Posts
    * runPHP
    * Democracy Poll
    * Custom Query String
    * Sociable
    * WPAds

  • Nick's Marketing Tutorials

    September 30th, 2007 2:29 am

    Thanks for the list!

    I had no idea Seth Godin had a plugin. I am a huge fan of Seth’s ideas.

  • Justin Fenwick

    September 30th, 2007 2:42 am

    These make blogging about the confusing world after college bearable!

    - Admin Drop Down Menu
    - Adsense Deluxe
    - Feedburner Feed Replacement
    - Google (XML) Sitemaps
    - Google Analytics
    - Spam Karma 2
    - Ultimate Tag Warrior
    - aLinks
    - Adhesive

    This is a great list, always looking for things that integrate well with my blog.

  • maneesh

    September 30th, 2007 2:51 am

    I used to have subscribe remind plugin at unneglectable, but with a new design things got a little bit crowded witht he extra line, so modified it and using the same idea only on single post pages now

    Besides that I use the popularity contest plugin

    too new a blog to make use of various other useful plugins.. planning to incorporate related posts now…

  • Grant D. Griffiths

    September 30th, 2007 2:52 am

    Great list!!! Once again Darren, you make the life of a blogger easier and easier with what you do on Problogger.

  • Brent Trahan

    September 30th, 2007 2:57 am

    Here are a few plugins I use on my site. They are listed in order of importance.

    Akismet – Excellent comment spam blocker.

    Google XML Sitemap Generator – Great for letting Google, Yahoo, MSN, and all other search engines where your content is.

    wp-cache – Increases your web server’s load capacity many times for when you’re dugg. It also makes your popular pages load very quickly.

  • Success For Your Blog

    September 30th, 2007 3:03 am

    Plugins I can’t live without

    *Adsense Deluxe
    *Akismet
    *Popularity Contest
    *Related Posts
    *SlashDiggicious
    *Recent Posts
    *Recent COmments
    *Iimage Browser
    *WP Backup
    *Firestats

    So many good plug-ins these days its hard to just pick 10.

  • Fab

    September 30th, 2007 3:36 am

    I find the plugin “aLinks” to be quite powerful… it allows to create links automatically on all the posts.
    It has modules to handle wikipedia, amazon, cj, clickbank types of links.

  • Eshark

    September 30th, 2007 3:46 am

    Very useful list of plugin.. A MUST GET plugin list I would say. Thanks for sharing!

  • Vik Dulat - Making Money the Easy Way

    September 30th, 2007 3:49 am

    I’m still using blogger since my blog is new but sooner later I’m going to make the switch to wordpress :)

  • Helping Other Bloggers

    September 30th, 2007 3:53 am

    I have about 15 plugins and don’t really want to share them all but here are some of the main ones I use:

    All in one SEO Pack – Good for SEO very good indead brings me lots of traffic without it my blog on google would be nothing

    Text Link Ads – This is most common plugin whoever uses TLA

    Subscribe to Comments – Same as yours Darren

    Other plugins are my own creation that I don’t share for public…my favorite one is google adsense for sidebar….

  • Chris Jacobson

    September 30th, 2007 4:03 am

    Wow, I have too many to list here, but I use every one of them. I like your choices Darren. I use some of the same ones.

  • Jeremy Steele

    September 30th, 2007 4:08 am

    I use Akisment
    Code Auto Escape (for posting source code)
    Digital Fingerprint
    DoFollow
    Feedburner Feedsmith
    Google XML Sitemaps
    Related Posts and ST Add Related Posts to Feed
    Subscribe To Comments
    WP-Cache
    WP-Grins

  • Lori

    September 30th, 2007 4:36 am

    There’s an error to the related posts and you can’t even access the wasabi site.

    I would love to use popularity contest but when I did a few weeks ago, I got some error and couldn’t even access my blog. I had to go to my hosts ftp and delete the plugin in from there.

  • Michael Boateng

    September 30th, 2007 4:43 am

    I use Akismet, Social Bookmarking RELOADED,Wordpress Download Monitor.
    I am looking at adding more plugins in the near future. I honestly don’t have so much on my blogs so i feel these are what i need for now.

    If Darren wouldn’t mind, i would trying using the Popularity Contest Plugin one of these days ;)

  • glblguy

    September 30th, 2007 5:00 am

    I actually just wrote a post about the one’s I use here. Darren, I don’t normally put links in comments, but I hope this is appropriate.

  • Mert Erkal

    September 30th, 2007 5:05 am

    Hi Darren,

    I’ve just posted http://searchforblogging.com/index.php/2007/09/29/how-to-use-wordpress-for-your-small-business-blog-part-4/ which shows my top 10 WordPress Plugins.

  • Chris Jacobson

    September 30th, 2007 5:06 am

    Darren, can you check the link on the Related Posts plugin?

  • mary

    September 30th, 2007 5:14 am

    I use Akismet and DoFollow on all my WP blogs. I also use

    WP Post Ratings
    Similar Posts
    Feedburner

    Thanks for all the plugin lists, time for me to do some research!

  • SEO Optimization

    September 30th, 2007 5:14 am

    I use the next plugins

    All in One SEO Pack
    SEO Slugs
    WPAds
    WP-Cache
    Related Posts
    Popular Posts
    Top Commentators

    Mainly plugins I use are related to seo and some on advertising, if i would list all the plugins the list would become too long (just teasing). But mainly, I have implemented some hacks to my theme (of course related to seo).

  • cooper

    September 30th, 2007 5:27 am

    Running a personal blog my list is different.

    The plug-ins I need:
    Categorical Links
    Comment Time Out
    Contact Form
    Digital Fingerprint
    Permanent Redirect
    Smart Comments
    SRG CleaN Archives
    WordPress Database Back-Up WordPress Automatic Upgrade which has worked well for me on the last two upgrades, but I’ve not used with the new full upgrade to 2.3

  • David Airey

    September 30th, 2007 5:30 am

    Maybe it’s just me, but with the Seth Godin Plugin, I’ve found that when I visit the sites using it, even in the same online sitting, the message appears every time, and not just on the 1st occasion.

    It’s a great idea, but off the top of my head, I’ve yet to witness it only appear on my 1st visit to a site, and not every single time.

    Maybe I’m wrong, but it’s something worth looking out for.

  • Kabitzin

    September 30th, 2007 5:54 am

    * Who Sees Ads: In addition to supporting all ad types, it lets you set conditions so that only search engine visitors see your ads, or the first 2000 viewers, etc. etc.

    * LMB Quicktags: Lets commenters take advantage of quicktag buttons, and insures that HTML code won’t get mistyped. Also allows for custom quicktags.

  • Calvin

    September 30th, 2007 6:12 am

    I’m just using Akismet right now…

    Currently tesing
    1. Adsense Manager Vs Adsense delux.
    2. Related Posts
    3. Popular Posts
    4. Democracy
    5. Top Commentators (already tested…its good plugin but I feel I can use this space for some better purpose)

    Anyone knows good plugin for Openads?
    (I can used openads in Adsense Manager but is there any dedicated plugin for Openads?)

  • David W Zemens - 1955 Design

    September 30th, 2007 6:21 am

    For a little change of pace, I suggest you use a terrific Contact Form plugin. It’s standards compliant, accessible and quite spam resistant as well.

    Secure and Accessible PHP Contact Form v.2.0WP

  • WarriorBlog

    September 30th, 2007 6:21 am

    My favorite is probably the Automatic Wordpress Update Plugin – I don’t think my blog will still be up if I did it manually :-)

    I see that you use Adsense Darren, but there is no adsense on Problogger…you probably have many other blogs too then?

  • Content Ads

    September 30th, 2007 6:28 am

    Is this only me who is using Optimal Title ?

    I use this to make sure that the post title comes before the blog title.

  • Brett Evans

    September 30th, 2007 6:37 am

    You can google all of these and find them

    viper video tags – makes it simple to embed video with out breaking the code

    Subscribe to remind – Puts a little sentence at the bottom to help increase rss feed subscription. A call to action for it.

  • Karthik

    September 30th, 2007 7:16 am

    I started my blog just over a month ago and I still use all the plugins that I listed in one of my posts titled 9 Plugins to kick-start your Wordpress blog.

    I’ve tried to explain what each plugin’s use is too, although in most cases, the names say it all.

  • Steven Snell

    September 30th, 2007 8:01 am

    Some of the most important for me are:
    Akismet
    Subscribe to Comments
    PostPost

  • John

    September 30th, 2007 8:39 am

    Hey! Thanks for the tips on different Plugins… Some of these like Random Direct and Subscribe to comments sound really cool to keep people on your blog…

    Apperciate it Daren…

  • Sharon Hurley Hall

    September 30th, 2007 10:04 am

    It’s tough to limit myself to 10, but here goes:

    Aksimet
    Aizatto’s Related Posts
    Add Meta Tags
    Better Comments Manager
    Feedsmith
    In Series
    Secure and Accessible PHP Contact Form
    Smart Archives
    Sunscribe To Comments
    TanTan Noodles Simple Spam Filter (stops most of the spam getting to Aksimet)

  • Rob Witham

    September 30th, 2007 10:37 am

    I only use a few plugins. I like to keep things simple…
    - Akismet
    - FeedBurner FeedSmith
    - Popularity Contest

    I have been thinking about adding ShareThis or a similar plugin for social / e-mail sharing. AdRotator sounds like an interesting possibility for the future.

  • vangardx

    September 30th, 2007 11:34 am

    hello darren, i use this plugin

    1. google sitemap
    2. quickcode
    3. feedsmith
    4. tagging
    5. subscribe to comment
    6. contact form
    7. threaded comment
    8. did you pass math
    9. shortstat

  • redwall_hp

    September 30th, 2007 12:00 pm

    I have the following installed:
    1. Akismet (of course)
    2. Better Comments manager
    3. Chunk Urls for WordPress
    4. Contact Form II
    5. FeedBurner FeedSmith
    6. Full Text Feed
    7. Google XML Sitemaps (or I did until 2.3 came out…)
    8. Optimal Title
    9. Peter’s Custom Anti-Spam
    10. Popularity Contest
    11. Related Posts
    12. Share This
    13. Smarter Archives
    14. Sphere Related Content
    15. Subscribe To Comments
    16. Tag Managing Thing
    17. WP AJAX Edit Comments

    So, have I one-upped the rest of you for plugin quantity? :D

  • Neil Duckett

    September 30th, 2007 2:57 pm

    I`m definately going to try the Seth Godin plugin now ….. maybe some readers from here might even subscribe!

  • geeeek

    September 30th, 2007 3:36 pm

    My list looks like this:
    - WP-Digg Style Paginator
    - All-in One SEO Pack
    - Contact Form ][
    - DoFollow
    - FeedSmith
    - FireStats
    - Sociable
    - Spam Karma 2
    - Subscribe to Comments
    - The Hackers Diet
    - Text Link Ads
    - Sexy Comments
    - Easy Tube

  • JoLynn Braley

    September 30th, 2007 4:58 pm

    Akismet
    Bad Behavior
    Subscribe to Comments
    Adsense Deluxe
    Random Comments
    Related Posts
    Feedsmith
    Google Sitemaps
    WWSGD …. @David Airey, you can set it to appear only 3 times, on the 4th it disappears….it will always appear to a user that does not have cookies enabled.

    Thanks for posting your list Darren, there are some new ones (to me) that I’m going to check out.

  • Neil Duckett

    September 30th, 2007 6:01 pm

    Can someone PLEASE suggest a tool to insert images in to posts? I am having all sorts of troubles.

  • kuba

    September 30th, 2007 6:38 pm

    My favorites:

    1. Polyglot – multilanguage solution
    2. Get Recent Comments
    3. Search Everything – I have a lot of static pages, this plugin helps a lot with this
    4. NextGEN Gallery
    5. XML-Sitemaps
    6. Akismet

  • farida

    September 30th, 2007 7:03 pm

    Several plugins i use include most of the ones mentioned here already however, one im using that doesn’t seem to be mentioned and is one of my favourites is COMMENT RELISH. This plugin Increases your readership and RSS subscription rate by simply sending a short ‘thank you’ message to users when they first comment on your blog. They will only be sent this message if they have never commented before. The message can be customised the way you want.

  • Kidblogger :: Carl Ocab

    September 30th, 2007 8:06 pm

    Is it me or my comment just got caught by the spam blocker?

  • kuba

    September 30th, 2007 8:35 pm

    Neil: try NextGEN Gallery inserting system (extra button in WYSIWYG editor), it works great for me… You can customize style (float left, right) or add extra features (watermarks, thickbox or lightbox effect, “cool” shadow etc.)

  • Neil Duckett

    September 30th, 2007 9:39 pm

    Thanks Kuba will try it!

  • JohnTP

    September 30th, 2007 9:52 pm

    These are my favorite WordPress Plugins. One plugin that I tried and liked recently is All in One SEO Pack.

  • pcguy

    September 30th, 2007 10:38 pm

    The Admin Drop Menu is a great plugin. Just downloaded it. Don’t know how I got by without it. Thanks.

  • Pascale Recher

    September 30th, 2007 11:06 pm

    Great post.

    My plugins… :
    1. Polyglot – great to get nice multilanguage blog without mess
    2. Google Site maps
    3. Wordpress stats
    4. Secure and accessible contact form (I just regret not to customize it… look for another one…)
    5. Akismet
    6. Wordpress stats.

    thanks for all your blogging by the way. :)

  • ivon

    September 30th, 2007 11:12 pm

    Thanks Kuba. As for me the All in one SEO plugin is a must, Wp-Print plugin , Wp-Backup, Google XML Sitemaps and Sphere.

  • Meet

    September 30th, 2007 11:42 pm

    Thanks for sharing your secrets :D

    I am using my favorite plugins listed on my site,,
    http://www.dirkut.com/top-wordpress-plugins/

    (you can nofollow this link, i dont mind :) )

  • Roberta

    September 30th, 2007 11:51 pm

    My favorite plugin is Cat2Tag. I like Live, Live Comment Preview, Simple Tags, and Popularity Contest. Oh yeah, and DoFollow…that’s a good one for gaining a lot of commenters.

  • Technobuzz.net

    October 1st, 2007 1:02 am

    I’m using

    All in on Seo package – for my seo

  • Mike Panic

    October 1st, 2007 1:59 am

    Adsense-Delux
    Akismet
    Contact Form
    Daily top 10 posts – this has been a GREAT success when installed on the sidebar
    Democracy – I’m not fond of this
    Did you pass math – simple math question required to leave a comment – cut down the spam Akismet had to deal with by 90%
    Enforce www. preference – makes a site always have or not have the www.
    Feedburner FeedSmith
    Gregarious – the better of the few social bookmarking plugins I’ve tried
    My Video – for YouTube
    Subscribe to comments – another huge success
    WordPress Database Backup – you are kinda dumb if you don’t backup now and again

  • Christopher

    October 1st, 2007 2:19 am

    Adsense manager
    Amazon showcase
    Dragon Design form mailer
    Google XML sitemaps
    search meter
    Ultimate google analytics
    WP-Table
    Wp-Forum
    Wp Cache
    Tiny MCE Advanced

  • Obakeng

    October 1st, 2007 2:42 am

    Hey Darren, thanks for the list dawg!!!

    Whoever came up with akismet plugin, is a legend and should be worshipped accordingly… imagine all the time one would spend, trying to delete spam comments.

    I like the different posts per page plugin, and also the podpress plugin have just installed it and will try that out

    Thanks again dawg!!!

  • Simon

    October 1st, 2007 3:36 am

    I’ve written about 5 crucial but invisible wordpress plugins before, but one I’d like to reiterate is CAPTCHA by ProtectWebForm. The thing that makes it so great is that it only shows the captcha challenge to spam bots (and people with Javascript disabled). This means that it stops ALL spam even getting to Akismet yet doesn’t bother your genuine readers. I was getting over 1000 spam comments a day on one blog, akismet caught them but it was a huge server drain. Installed this plugin and not a single one has gotten through to akismet since.

  • Gustavo

    October 1st, 2007 5:06 am

    Well, besides most of the plugins I’ve seen, there is one that is particularly new on the scene it seems, but full of potential, called HeadSpace2.

    I recently found it a couple of days ago on the new WP 2.3 compatibility list. Another winner also is cforms II, for creating custom forms on your WP website.

    Maybe I should post later on a subversion method I use to handle the updates easily on the plugins :)

  • Rene

    October 1st, 2007 8:44 am

    We use many of the ones mentioned here and are considering the Photos Flickr plug in on our blog.. I don’t see anyone here mentioning it, or any other Flicker plug in. Do they suck? Any feedback greatly appreciated. Thx.

  • Warren

    October 1st, 2007 8:59 am

    If you get down to this comment, give yourself a pat on the back. That was a lot of reading.

    Anyway. I am just starting to become more serious with blogging so I don’t have any really cool plug ins but these will help. Thanks Darren!

  • Josh

    October 1st, 2007 12:22 pm

    Wow… to be honest, I am not using any plugins. But I think I will start with your list. I’ll take it from the best. Thanks.

  • Leon

    October 1st, 2007 12:56 pm

    Akismet is the only listed plugin I use.

  • Rajagopalan

    October 1st, 2007 5:50 pm

    Hi Darren,
    I use the following top 10 plugins

    1. Ad Rotator
    2. Akismet
    3. Ad Spaces
    4. Feedburner Feed Replacement
    5. Text Link Ads
    6. Terong Related Links (simple but better than wasabi)
    7. Wordpress Affiliate Pro (better than alinks)
    8. Wordpress Database Backup
    9. Ultimate Tag Warrior
    10. Frame Buster (Prevents your blog from being loaded into a frame)

    Regards
    Raj

  • Serge

    October 1st, 2007 9:02 pm

    So far, I’m not using any WP plugin yet. I’ll have a look at the list mentioned in this article. It makes me curious.

  • Andrew

    October 1st, 2007 10:06 pm

    I use several of the plugins listed but what I am really interested in knowing is if there are any tools/ tricks which can tell you which plugins a given site uses. This would more likely be something along the lines of a Firefox extension (e.g. WASP – which tells users the analytics package(s) a site uses – or Web Developer – which gives you a whole host of tools including seeing the CSS a page uses) than a plugin. If this does exist, it woudl be an extremely useful tools for new blogger to identify and discover useful plugins.

  • JerkyBeef

    October 2nd, 2007 12:47 am

    Great post Darren,

    This blog site is still one of my favorites.

    plug-ins:
    1. All SEO in One
    2. Adsense Deluxe
    3. Feedburner Feed
    4. Popularity Contest
    5. Google Sitemap
    6. Akismet
    7. Technorati Tag Bunny
    8. Search Meter
    9. Better Comments Manager

  • Bull3t

    October 2nd, 2007 4:38 am

    Here is my list:

    Akismet
    Code Extractr
    Contact Form 7
    Comment Relish
    Category Tagging
    Dofollow
    Exec-PHP
    Enhanced Widgets
    FeedBurner FeedSmith
    FireStats
    Google XML Sitemaps
    Gregarious
    iMP Portfolio
    Improved Include Page
    iMP Download
    Notations
    Post Footer
    Plugins Used Plugin
    Reinvigorate
    Redirection
    Subscribe To Comments
    Simple Spoiler Enhanced
    SparkStats
    Search Engine Optimisation Pack
    Show Top Commentators
    Ultimate Google Analytics
    WordPress Database Backup
    WP-Untexturize
    WP AJAX Edit Comments
    What Would Seth Godin Do
    WP-PostRatings
    WP-PostViews
    WP-Stats Widget
    WP-Stats
    WP-Sticky

    See the updated list here: http://blog.bull3t.me.uk/about/statistics/plugins/.

  • Jason Tucker

    October 2nd, 2007 6:15 am

    Wow, some great lists here. I’m going to have to try a bunch of these. Here’s my list:

    - Advanced TinyMCE Editor
    - Akismet
    - All in one SEO
    - Enforce www. Preference
    - Feedburner Feedsmith
    - Google Sitemaps
    - NoFollow Free
    - Sociable
    - Subscribe to Comments
    - Ultimate Tag Warrior

  • Mark McGuire

    October 2nd, 2007 7:55 am

    I have used the What Would Seth Goodin Use before and it did not do anything for me so I tried a different approach, just the same concept but without the annoying box by using my own Feedburner and my readership went up.

    I use these plugisn

    Askimet
    All in One SEO
    Articles (Top 5)
    Google Analytics (Top 5)
    If You Like That… (Top 5)
    wp-cache (Top 5)
    Wordpress Report
    Language Translator (Top 5)
    Comment Relish

    The last one, Comment Relish, has really made a bigger difference than the Seth Goodin plugin because it sends out a thank you email note to those who comment and those people have returned to my website more than once…

  • Travis

    October 2nd, 2007 12:10 pm

    Mark, could you elaborate on your replacement approach to the WWSGD plugin? I’d be interested to know what solution you came up with.

    Thanks for the tip on Comment Relish, I hadn’t heard of that one yet.

  • Satish Talim

    October 4th, 2007 3:14 pm

    Some other plug-ins I use are -
    404 Notifier
    Add Sig
    Adhesive
    Text Link Ads

  • Rodney

    October 6th, 2007 7:19 am

    Thanks for the post and for your prompt response to the question I emailed last week.

    As you know from my question last week I am considering moving to WordPress. Actually I’ve decided to, it’s just a matter of when and how now. This post I’m sure will prove to be very valuable to me.

  • Alex

    November 7th, 2007 2:44 am

    I see that you use the Share This plugin on your blog Darren, but have the sharing options on a separate page, instead of as a drop down AJAX box.

    Is there a reason you chose to do it this way?

    I just installed it on my blog, and was wondering which way you would recommend?

  • javed khalil

    November 13th, 2007 11:05 am

    Problogger is best.
    Here is my list.

    http://javedkhalil.com/techBlog/wordpress-essential-plugins-widgets-spice-up-blogging-experience/

    Thanks

  • Rick

    November 30th, 2007 10:55 am

    This is a great list Darren. But as wordpress plugins are always evolving was wondering if you could do another list in the near future with all the latest greatest.
    Would be appreciated!
    Cheers

  • neil khakheria

    December 3rd, 2007 9:34 am

    Thanks for the info.

    I use SEO title tag, alongside editing the permalinks to %postname%. Great SEO advantages.

  • Chris Thomson

    December 18th, 2007 8:35 am

    Great list.

    Here is my list of my favorite plugins, but some of them interfere with each other, so I have a page on my blog that is powered by WP-PluginsUsed – a great plugin to list all the plugins that are enabled, and disabled!

    Thanks for the list

  • Joshua Clanton

    December 27th, 2007 5:56 pm

    David Airey mentioned a bit further up in the comments that the Seth Godin plugin will often give you the welcome text even after the first time you visit. This isn’t a bug with the plugin, but an option that you can configure.

    By default the welcome message will show up 3 times, but you can go into the plugin options and change this to any number that you want. (Well, any positive integer anyway. :-) )

  • MG

    February 29th, 2008 10:55 pm

    I use seo pack, related posts, xml sitemap, do follow, popular etc…

  • hip hop videos

    April 11th, 2008 11:26 am

    Related posts, audio player, post ratings, post views and seo all in one plugin <- very very useful!

    I also use Windows Live Writer to write all my posts, incredibly useful if you’re like me and hate logging in the wp-admin interface all the time.

  • internet branding

    May 2nd, 2008 1:40 pm

    1.All in one SEO pack
    2.Permalink redirect
    3.Akismet
    4.Enforce www preference
    5.Google sitemap

    These are the essentials.

  • Kevin

    May 3rd, 2008 12:06 am

    It has to be the ‘All In One SEO Plugin.’

    I’m just starting blogging and about three days ago I started to changed on of my sites http://www.vegetarian-worldwide.com from a standard site to a blog and I’m adding one or two pages that I have each day. Today I added a recipe ‘American Blueberry Toast,’ and just 18 minutes later it ranked No.1 in Google!

    I’ve tried a number of the other pages I have and they are also ranking on the first and second page.

    Recommendation: get All In One SEO plugin today (well not if you’re running a vegetarian site :) )

    Kevin

  • moving quotes

    April 8th, 2009 6:51 am

    Over my head….do you have a resource to learn the ABCs of blogging. I guess WordPress is a good choice, but why? I wonder.

    Anywasys, great post,….I have bookmarked it.

    Nick


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