Facebook Pixel
Join our Facebook Community

Which WordPress Plugins Do You Use?

Posted By Darren Rowse 30th of September 2007 Blogging Tools and Services 0 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.

About Darren Rowse
Darren Rowse is the founder and editor of ProBlogger Blog Tips and Digital Photography School. Learn more about him here and connect with him on Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn.
Comments
  1. 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?)

  2. 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

  3. 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?

  4. Is this only me who is using Optimal Title ?

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

  5. 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.

  6. 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.

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

  8. 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…

  9. 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)

  10. 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.

  11. 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

  12. 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

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

  14. 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

  15. 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.

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

  17. 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

  18. 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.

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

  20. 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.)

  21. Thanks Kuba will try it!

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

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

  24. 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. :)

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

  26. 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 :) )

  27. 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.

  28. I’m using

    All in on Seo package – for my seo

  29. 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

  30. 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

  31. 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!!!

  32. 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.

  33. 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 :)

  34. 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.

  35. 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!

  36. 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.

  37. Akismet is the only listed plugin I use.

  38. 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

  39. 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.

  40. 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.

  41. 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

  42. 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/.

  43. 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

  44. 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…

  45. 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.

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

  47. 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.

  48. 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?

  49. 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

A Practical Podcast… to Help You Build a Better Blog

The ProBlogger Podcast

A Practical Podcast…

Close
Open