Wordpress Plugins I Use
August 6th, 2008 by John Herman, under Wordpress. No Comments
I get asked a lot what Wordpress Plugins I recommend a lot. Here is my first stab at coming up with a list.
SEO Plugins
Permalink Redirect
Ensures consistent formatting of page links in permalinks for good SEO
http://scott.yang.id.au/code/permalink-redirect/
Broken Link Checker
Will deactive links when they become broken
http://w-shadow.com/blog/2007/08/05/broken-link-checker-for-wordpress/
SEO Smart Links
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/seo-automatic-links/
Google XML Sitemaps Generator (links to Google to keep your site up-to-date in the index)
http://www.arnebrachhold.de/projects/wordpress-plugins/google-xml-sitemaps-generator/
Platinum SEO
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/platinum-seo-pack/
All in One SEO Pack (Well Known but recent change in developer … Platinum SEO has some more features)
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/all-in-one-seo-pack/
Comments
Absolute Comments
Allows for a quick way to respond to comments
http://planetozh.com/blog/my-projects/absolute-comments-manager-instant-reply/
Subscribe to Comments
Allows people to get email notifications when new comments appear on a post so they can go back and keep the discussion going
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/subscribe-to-comments/
Comment Relish
Sends email to someone after they comment so you can thank them, etc.
http://www.justinshattuck.com/comment-relish/
Akismet
Most popular Spam for Wordpress (also made by the company that manages the Wordpress project)
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/akismet/
Akismet does have some false positive issues and blacklisting people os you may also want to look at Six Aparts spam filter … it is a nice product also
Typepad AntiSpam
http://antispam.typepad.com/info/get-started.html
RSS Feeds
Feedburner Feedsmith
Redirects your feed to feedburner so you can get stats. Feedburner is a Google product for managing RSS feeds. It is free and you should definitely sign up
http://www.google.com/support/feedburner/bin/topic.py?topic=13252
Managing Content
Flexi Pages Widget
Great if you are going to have Pages links in your sidebar instead of static
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/flexi-pages-widget/
Pagemash
Great Plugin for a WYSYWIG way to order and hide your pages from view
http://joelstarnes.co.uk/pagemash.php
Backend Admin Stuff
Wordpress Automatic Upgrade
A must have .. it will let you automatically upgrade to the latest version of Wordpress
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/wordpress-automatic-upgrade/
WP Super Cache
Great Caching plugin that will prevent your site crashing if you get a lot of traffic at once
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/wp-super-cache/
Search Everything
Extends the search to cover more parts. Wordpress used to not even search pages but that has been fixed. This is still a good plugin to have because it extends the search to cover more ground.
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/search-everything/
Favicon Header
Adds a favicon without having to change template code
http://timjoh.com/wordpress-plugin-favicon-head/
Misc Great Tools
Share This
Allows people to bookmark the page on sites like digg as well as email someone about a link
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/share-this/
cformsII
Great form creator
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/cforms/
Next-Gen Gallery
Great photo gallery plugin
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/nextgen-gallery/
Twitter Tools
Notifies Twitter of new blog posts
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/twitter-tools/
Slideshare Plugin
Slideshare.com presentations tend to mess up the code on Wordpress sites. This fixes that and allows you to give it a specific width.
http://yoast.com/wordpress/slideshare/
Viper Video Tags
Video Sharing Sites tend to mess up a Wordpress page also this helps fix that
http://www.viper007bond.com/wordpress-plugins/vipers-video-quicktags/
Wordpress Video Plugin is also a good option
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/wordpress-video-plugin/
WP Audio Player
Some people prefer Podpress for podcasts, but I have found it overkill for what I need. Audio Player covers all the things I need,but Podpress is great too if you want to check that out for Audio Podcasts.
Similar Posts
http://rmarsh.com/plugins/similar-posts/
Stats
Wordpress.com Stats
A good second set of stats to have and run
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/stats/
Google Analytics for Wordpress (adds the Google Analytics code to your template without having to put it in manually)