Since I’ve been doing quite a lot of WordPress blog upgrading recently, I’ve been diving into its plugins a lot. There are lots of them around and I have grown a liking to some of them.
Here’s a list of plugins that I’ve found to be essential to any of my WP installations:
- WP Installer
what: install plugins/themes without using FTP
why: makes installing and maintaining plugins really easy, even behind a firewall. This is the first plugin I always install.
where: mattread.com
install: installer-04.zip - Akismet
what: delete comment and trackback spam – not perfect but indispensable – pre-installed on Dreamhost accounts
why: save you time and annoyance by filtering out the real comments
site: akismet.com/
install: akismet.zip (v1.2.1) - WP Cache
what: keep cached copies of your pages – pre-installed on Dreamhost accounts
why: speeds up your site
site: mnm.uib.es
install: wp-cache-2-0-21.zip - Brian’s Latest Comments
what: displays your recent comments in a nicer format
why: gives a better view of the popular articles
site: meidell.dk
install: brianslatestcomments.zip - K2 Theme
what: more than just a theme, includes a WYSIWYG sidebar and customisable header image
why: if you can live with its looks, the most powerful theme available
site: getk2.com
install: k2-091.zip - MightyAdsense
what: manage your Google Adsense code insertion
why: easily decide what ad goes where without modifying your theme
site: mightyhitter.com
install: mightyadsense41.zip - RunPHP
what: run PHP code inside your blog posts
why: create pages that actually do stuff
site: www.nosq.com
install: runPHP2.1b.zip - Popularity contest
what: keep track of # views, comments … of all your posts
why: makes it easy to show your popular posts
site: alexking.org
install: popularity-contest.zip v1.2.1 - Ultimate Tag Warrior
what: add tags/keywords to your posts (Technorati compatible), show related posts based on those
why: last tagging plugin you’ll ever need
site: neato.co.nz
install: UTW3-141592WP2.zip - Google Sitemap generator
what: creates a Google Sitemap XML file automatically
why: because you need it, and you won’t do it manually anyway
site: arnebrachhold.de
install: sitemap.zip v2.7
And some nice to have’s:
- FlickrRSS: show Flickr photos in your sidebar
- Gravatar: show avatars for commenters (currently under reconstruction)
- Sparkstats: show blog and comment activity
- Backlinks: show incoming links trend
- Dagon Sitemap: list all posts per category (index or sitemap)
Thanks. Just started a wordpressblog so tips can come in handy.
Wonderful list you have here, I’ve been using some of these already, but there are a couple more that will be added soon because of this list! Thanks Peter!
Nice, yeah, K2 rocks. Here’s a few that I use that are also essential:
– Feedburner Feed Replacement – Feedburner has awesome feed stats, and now they’ve added website stats too! http://www.orderedlist.com/articles/wordpress_feedburner_plugin/
– WordPress Database Backup – obvious. http://www.skippy.net/blog/plugins/