Your wordpress plugins

by zonkow
33 replies
How many wordpress plugins do you use?
Which are most useful?
#plugins #wordpress
  • Profile picture of the author James.N
    It depends on the site but I use the usuals:

    all in one seo
    google xml sitemap
    piwik (for analytics)
    go codes if I'm using affiliate links
    backup creator - to back it up

    Thats everything off the top of my head.
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  • Profile picture of the author AnniePot
    You should use only the plugins that are absolutely necessary to specific task you need performed in your blog.

    Many plugins are poorly written, inefficient, resource hogs, creating a slow site and heavy server loads. You could end up receiving a complaint from your service provider because you are hogging too many server resources. There is even a plugin called PluginHogDetector which will help you track down the CPU hogs. No, I'm not recommending you install it!
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  • Profile picture of the author NoviIM
    Akismet
    AllinOne SEO
    ClickBump SEO
    Contact Board 7
    Dashboard Heaven
    Gocodes
    Google Analytics For Wordpress
    Google XML Sitemaps
    Hello Dolly
    Reactivate posts via categories
    WP-table Reloaded
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    • Profile picture of the author Chris Silvey
      NetWork Publisher
      BookMarkLovers
      SEOPressor
      WP-Robot
      WP-Shopping Pages
      Display Widgets
      WP Touch
      BulletProof Security
      Feedburner FeedSmith
      Google XML Sitemap
      Internal Link Building
      Pie Register
      Use Google Libraries (sometimes, but not all)
      Visual Form Builder Pro
      W3 Total Cache (sometimes)
      WordPress Importer
      HMT Import/Export - for Heatmap Pro 5 Theme
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      WP Animate - Increases Conversions & Clicks!
      Create Amazing CSS3 Animations in just a few Clicks - New!

      WPHeadline.net - Create Blazing Headlines in just a few clicks. Updated to WordPress 4.1.1
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    • Profile picture of the author spicer
      All in One SEO Pack
      AStickyPostOrderER
      Akismet
      Contact Form 7
      Copyright Proof
      Google XML Sitemaps
      Google Analytics for WordPress
      Portable phpMyAdmin
      Slick Social Share Buttons
      WP Super Cache
      WP Policies

      My personally developed plugins
      Featured Post -- feature posts in a slider.
      Wordpress Training Plugin -- video back end video training plugin
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  • Profile picture of the author welshgirl2
    Anniepot is right - A whole load of unnecessary plugins can slow down your site, and if they are not updated regularly can put your blog at risk of hackers.

    However, having said that there are a few plugins that I feel are a must and I use them on all my sites. They are:

    Askimet - To help fight spam.
    All in One Adsense and YPN - helps me to easily insert Adsense at the top of every post.
    Easy Contact - Easily inserts a contact form on your page.
    Easy Privacy Policy - Creates a privacy policy with a few clicks of your mouse.
    Google xml Sitemaps - Creates a Google complient xml sitemap.
    All in One SEO - Good for search engine optimization.


    Clare
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    Free Domain Name & Hosting
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  • Profile picture of the author Jay Wessman
    The three main plugins I use are:

    Yoast SEO Plugin - Great for SEOing your blog.
    Akismet - To eliminate spam.
    Sharebar - To encourage my visitors to share my content.
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    • Profile picture of the author Jill Carpenter
      Originally Posted by zonkow View Post

      How many wordpress plugins do you use?
      Which are most useful?
      Depends on the site and what I need it to do.

      Less I need to use, the better.

      What is most useful to me may not be anything helpful toward the goals of your website.
      Signature

      "May I have ten thousand marbles, please?"

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  • Profile picture of the author macker2298
    funny how most of us use google xml sitemaps plugin
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  • Profile picture of the author SteveJohnson
    Originally Posted by Chris Kent View Post

    The only one I use is statcounter. The rest suck.

    People love plugins like they're accessories to show off to others. Most just aren't needed, especially the SEO ones.

    WP is SEO'd great out of the box. Do people honestly think that Google doesn't know the WP structure inside out already and need to spoon feed it? C'mon.
    WP is NOT "SEO'd great out of the box". WP itself has NOTHING to do with SEO.

    The theme controls the SEO aspects of any WP site. Crappy theme structure, crappy SEO result. It so happens that the original (and subsequent) 'standard' WP themes were well-crafted in terms of HTML, and so performed well in the search engines.

    SEO plugins (the good ones, anyway) do things that most themes don't do out-of-the-box, like customizable titles, meta descriptions, etc. That is their only function, and if your theme has those aspects included there is no need for an external SEO plugin.

    ###

    Here's a little hint - if you're using WP to build a site with no visitor interaction, you don't need Akismet, just turn off commenting site-wide. One less plugin to worry about.

    ###

    Only use plugins that you absolutely need for your site to function how you want it to. Every plugin you add increases your page load time or server load, however minutely.
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  • Profile picture of the author Sean Tan
    Here are some i always use.

    All in One SEO Pack
    Akismet
    Contact Form 7
    Google XML Sitemaps
    Google Analytica
    W3 Total Cache
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    • Profile picture of the author emotainment
      Completely depends on the site. Some of my sites are cobbled together almost completely by plugins. I've learned over time to use less plugins and/or those that can do multiple things like Wordpress SEO, which takes the place of several smaller plugins.

      The ones I almost always use basically fall into spam blocking/seo/security categories:

      *Akismet if commenting is open
      *Wordpress SEO
      *Contact Form 7
      *WP Firewall 2
      *File Monitor (let you know immediately if a file has been changed on your site which is very important as WP continues to become a bigger target for hackers)

      Those are all free, but I use an array of premium/WSO plugins that extend functionality further when needed.
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      "You are what you think about all day long." ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

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  • Profile picture of the author TweetGirl
    A couple that come to mind are:

    AllinOne SEO
    Contact Form 7
    Google XML Sitemaps
    Pretty Link Lite
    Si Captcha
    Daily Stat
    Sociable
    Wp Super Cache
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  • Profile picture of the author Premier Plugins
    I second Yoast SEO plugin.

    Many good ones listed already.

    Haven't seen backWPup mentioned yet, that's another good one for site backups.
    TinyMCE for more advanced content creation is good too.

    I'll be adding some of the posted ones to my "must have free plugin package" for my site. Thanks for the shares everyone. Much appreciated.
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  • Profile picture of the author MidlandsMarketer
    Like others have been saying, it depends on the site.

    However, there are a bunch that I use whatever, and these are:

    Google XML SiteMaps
    Akismet
    Tantan AntiSpam
    All in one SEO

    Except for very rare circumstances, I'll also make use of AdRotator.
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  • Profile picture of the author ayhaah
    AllinOne SEO
    ClickBump SEO
    Contact Board 7
    Dashboard Heaven
    Gocodes
    Google Analytics For Wordpress
    Google XML Sitemaps
    BulletProof Security
    Feedburner FeedSmith
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    Cheap Backlinks From PR2 -PR6
    HIGH PR DO FOLLOW BLOG COMMENTING
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  • Profile picture of the author CyberSEO
    Originally Posted by zonkow View Post

    How many wordpress plugins do you use?
    Which are most useful?
    Only Askimet, WP Super Cache and my own code. Less plugins -> faster loading times -> one more score to your karma in the eyes of Panda.
    Signature
    CyberSEO Pro - the ultimate all-in-one autoblogging WordPress plugin, powered by OpenAI GPT-4, Anthropic Claude, Google Gemini Pro, Midjourney, DALL-E 3 and Stable Diffusion XL
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  • Profile picture of the author lossman29
    I try to use the bare minimum when it comes to plugins.

    Akismet
    Easy WP SEO
    Share This
    Backup Buddy
    W3 Cache

    The less number of plugins you use, the better.
    Signature

    "There is light at the end of the tunnel. Have some faith and work hard. ALWAYS."

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  • Profile picture of the author Marsala
    I don't use too many plugins. They can become a distraction and keep you make you waste some time instead of doing productive work. Some plugins can also distract your users. Whatever plugins I use, I make sure they add real value to me and my users.
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  • Profile picture of the author chistyle
    Wordpress Core Plugins I use.

    All in One SEO Pack
    Better WordPress Minify (excellent!! minifys your Js, CSS, style Sheets on site to Load Faster)
    BWP Google XML Sitemaps (great alternative to Google XML sitemaps)
    Easy WP SEO (great plugin for onpage SEO, similiar to SEOPRESSOR but better)
    Google Keyword Tracker
    Quick Cache (I think its quicker than w3 cache)
    Quick Page/Post Redirect DEV (quicker to use than Redirection)
    Spam Free Wordpress (I like it better than Akismet)
    TinyMCE Advanced
    (great for extra functions on your post/page visual editor)


    Wordpress 2nd bunch of plugins I use on sites.

    AdRotate (excellent adrotating plugin I use it for google Adsense, also widget ready)
    WP to Twitter
    WP Robot 3
    Dynamic Content Gallery (great Slider plugin)
    ALO EasyMail Newsletter
    (excellent Email Newsletter plugin, also send out emails from your host).
    amazonpress (adds amazon products to your site post/pages etc)
    Contact Form 7

    Other wordpress Plugins I use now and then.

    WordPress Importer
    Maintenance Mode
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  • Profile picture of the author socialbookmark
    I only run one wordpress site and i use these plugins:
    • Akismet
    • All in One SEO
    • Google XML Sitemaps
    Also i use a free theme for it. But plugins can be changed according to your needs. If i need a new feature, i will install more plugins.
    Signature

    I love warriorforum. zendegiyesabz

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    • Profile picture of the author ferenan
      All in One SEO Pack
      Akismet
      Contact Form 7
      Google Analytica
      W3 Total Cache
      Google XML Sitemaps
      Google Analytics for WordPress
      Portable phpMyAdmin
      I used some others but I turned them off since made my site simetimes to load slower.
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  • Profile picture of the author Deacon Blues
    Yoast Wordpress Seo
    All in one favicon
    statpress reloaded
    Share This - important to add social buttons to all pages
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    Interview about circumnavigating in a 41' sailboat

    Keep the kids busy & learning while you work
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  • Profile picture of the author wAvision
    all in one seo
    getclicky
    sharaholic
    elis related posts
    google xml sitemap
    Signature
    They Say You Can't...Show Them How
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  • Profile picture of the author Artwm
    Originally Posted by zonkow View Post

    How many wordpress plugins do you use?
    Which are most useful?
    I use as less as possible since hostgator disabled my account. WP Super cache is a must for everyone I think.
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    • Profile picture of the author JohnMcCabe
      There are so many plugins that become totally unnecessary if you (or your webmaster) have even a rudimentary grasp of HTML and WP.

      Things like privacy page builders, contact forms, anything you can add directly to a theme template once and not have to worry about it.

      I use Akismet, a sitemap builder, and a few security plugins (I'd have to log in to check the list). Started using a backup plugin that runs daily on a cron job in the wee small hours when server loads tend to be lighter.

      That's about it. Just about everything else I want to do, I can do by modifying the theme or the style sheet, or by calling an external script that handles many sites on an on-call basis.
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  • Profile picture of the author fxstay
    All in One SEO
    Akismet
    Contact Form 7
    Google XML Sitemaps
    but i think all in one seo is the best one
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  • Profile picture of the author Istvan Horvath
    There are no "most..." and "best" plugins. Period. Only ignorant uneducated WP users making up this kind of BS-list...

    And, of course, there are the experienced and knowledgeable users who try to teach everybody else about this - but nobody listens.

    Think I am exaggerating? READ every post in this thread before answering my question
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  • Profile picture of the author BLM
    My favorite is SEO Presser!
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  • Profile picture of the author AJ Warrior
    All in One SEO

    Akismet

    Contact Form 7

    Google XML Sitemaps
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