What WordPress plugins do you use?

[Dan Schulz]

I'm just curious. Aside from the obvious (please don't repeat them), such as Akismet, Ask-Me, the Secure and Accessible Contact Form plugin for WordPress, Smart Archives, and the like, what plugins do you use for your Wordpress installations, and (more importantly), why do you use them?

Right now I'm planning to use the following on a couple sites I'm currently in the procses of creating (which will be powered by WordPress, but used as a CMS instead of a blog):

• Akismet (obviously)
• Ask Me WP 2.1 (WordPress 2.1.x upgrade of ses5909's Ask Me Plugin)
• Author Highlight
• ©Feed
• Close Old Posts
• Enforce www. Preference (obviously)
• Feedburner Feed Replacement (obviously)
• Full Text Feed
• IM Online
• Miniblog
• Optimal Title (obviously)
• Organize Series
• Search Everything
• Secure and Accessible PHP Contact Form (obviously)
• Sidebar Widgets (obviously)
• Smart Archives (obviously)
• SocialList
• WordPress Admin Themer
• WP-Polls
• WP-Polls Widget
• wp-weather

Obviously, I won't be using all of these on every single site; for example, the IM Online plugin will probably be on my personal site, while the Miniblog and wp-weather will be on my local gaming (no, I don't mean gambling) group's site. SociaList is a curiosity for me, and the Admin themer will be used for client work that way they don't have to suffer through the default WordPress admin theme (yuck!). So, as the thread title says, what WordPress plugins do you use (or plan to use) and why?

[SimplyFu]

Gravatars, ...

[Marubozo]

I have fairly simple needs and only have a few plugins outside of Akismet.

Feedburner Feed Replacement
Google Analyticator
Google Sitemaps
Related Posts
Social Bookmark Creator
WordPress Database Backup
WP-ContactForm

[RetroNetro]

Here is a list of most of the ones I use (various sites) there are a few others I have installed such as Mini Blog, Author Highlight and Gravatars.

• Google sitemap
• Feedburner Feed replacement
• DD Sitemap generator
• Subscribe to comments
• Optimal Title
• Author highlight
• WP Contact Form
• Post Image
• Related Posts
• Subscribe to comments
• Ultimate Tag Warrior
• iG Syntax Highlighter
• Search Highlight

[Tailslide]

Apart from all the boring normal stuff I tend to use the following:

Fold Page List - Nice aid to navigation, hides child pages except when on the parent page.
Dragon Design Sitemap Generator - Not actually for sitemaps but with a little alteration you can make it list stuff in useful ways not available by default in WP.
SmartUpadatePinger - so you don't bore people with edits etc
FAlbum - my favourite WP gallery. Integrated with Flickr and very easy to use.

[ses5909]

I don't have very many.. 7 or 8 and they were all listed. The only other one I have activate is:

Live which is just a cool plugin that lets you watch people as they visit your site.

Forgot to add this one I have on another blog:

Admin Drop Down Menu

This one is just a nice one to have I think. It adds roll-over drop down menus in your admin panel rather than having to click on the menu item.

[RetroNetro]

Hello

Your post pointed me to the Admin Drop Down Menu which lead me to the Tiger Admin Theme which looks awesome, and the drop down plug in works too, the drop down needs some color adjustments (but I will get to that later).

Thanks for the tip.

I don't have very many.. 7 or 8 and they were all listed. The only other one I have activate is:

Live which is just a cool plugin that lets you watch people as they visit your site.

Forgot to add this one I have on another blog:

Admin Drop Down Menu

This one is just a nice one to have I think. It adds roll-over drop down menus in your admin panel rather than having to click on the menu item.

[EJ]

• Akismet (of course!)
• PostRatings (Going to remove soon I think)
• Sitemap Generator (Not even sure what this does)
• Feedburner Feed Replacement
• Optimal Title (Definitely useful, swaps the page titles around)
• Intouch (Nice contact form inserter, but it inserts heaps of javascript into each and every page)

That's about it for me.

[ses5909]

Hello

Your post pointed me to the Admin Drop Down Menu which lead me to the Tiger Admin Theme which looks awesome, and the drop down plug in works too, the drop down needs some color adjustments (but I will get to that later).

Thanks for the tip.

nice. I have seen some wordpress admin themes but never really cared as the existing one is fine for me. maybe I'll check that one out though.

[EJ]

I've tried about 3 WordPress admin themes, and none have ever worked completely, after using one for a while I'm sure you'll find a glitch and you'll swap back to the default.

[Manpasand]

Very good list of WP plugins. Some of them I am already using and few of them I will consider to use. ;-)

[feistyred]

Aside from several that were already mentioned, I also use

• Custom Query String
• Head META Description
• FlickrRSS
• Advanced WYSIWYG Editor
• Scrobbles (for fun)

[BrandonK]

I don't believe these have been mentioned yet:

• EditorMonkey
• FlickrRSS
• Sidebar Widgets
• WP-DBManager
• WP-PageNavi
• WP-Polls Widget

[Hal9k]

• Bad Behaviour stops spambots from even accessing your site, I use it coupled with Akismet and it has saved me a lot of bandwidth.

[Mittineague]

Besides some of those already listed, I use

• AntiLeech
• Auto-Close Comments
• Block-lists anti-spam measures
• Bushisms
• Close Comment Tags
• Digital Fingerprint
• Executable PHP widget
• Google URI Redirector
• My Category Order
• Search Meter
• SimpleTags
• Text Control
• Trackback Validator
• Unfancy Quote
• WP-Cron
• WP-Cron-Mail
• WP View Subscriber Info

Plus a few of my own, including the 2 in my sig.

[Sven S.]

Probably nothing that isn't already mentioned:
All-in-one SEO pack
CodeSnippet: Can't miss this one if you want to post code on your blog.
Google-Sitemap Generator: Generates a sitemap for your blog so Google has an easier time indexing your site.

[paulgb]

I'm surprised no one has mentioned WP-Cache. That and my own JSSpamBlock are the only plug-ins I use.

[ckita]

Well..I use many plugins on my network of blogs, here are some:

Categorical Links Page

Category Tagging

DoFollow

Download Counter

MyAvatars

Popularity Contest

RSS Auto Submit

StickPost

Ultimate Category Cloud

WP-PageNavi

and many many more actually..

[bigp]

Wow! I'm shocked that only one person uses a DoFollow plugin. This is a must for any blogger who has ever gotten help from another blogger. Do your part and help others grow their sites. Why bother having commenters enter their website if you're not going to grant them the benefit of search engine crawling.

Find and ADD a 'DO FOLLOW' Plugin, please! I do on all my blogs.

[EJ]

Wow! I'm shocked that only one person uses a DoFollow plugin. This is a must for any blogger who has ever gotten help from another blogger. Do your part and help others grow their sites. Why bother having commenters enter their website if you're not going to grant them the benefit of search engine crawling.

Find and ADD a 'DO FOLLOW' Plugin, please! I do on all my blogs.

You've confused me... it sounds like you're saying two different things there

[bigp]

You've confused me... it sounds like you're saying two different things there

What is confusing? By adding DO FOLLOW to your blog, you benefit your commenters by allowing the SEs to follow the links they post. I'm saying one thing . . . DO FOLLOW is beneficial to all bloggers. Use it and help your fellow bloggers out.

[EJ]

What is confusing? By adding DO FOLLOW to your blog, you benefit your commenters by allowing the SEs to follow the links they post. I'm saying one thing . . . DO FOLLOW is beneficial to all bloggers. Use it and help your fellow bloggers out.

Well aren't the links already followable by default?

[bigp]

Well aren't the links already followable by default?

No, they are not. Most people assume that. The blog software makers have decided that the NO FOLLOW tag should be used in comments. This is set as default in most of the major packages. You need to get a seperate plugin to be sure comments can be followed by the SEs. If you right click on a comment URL on a blog and select properties, you'll see that many blogs have NO FOLLOW. If you're looking to build your ranking in the SEs, you're wasting your time posting comments, except to have humans view the link. A SE spider will not see your site through the link. Focus your energies on blogs that do not have the NO FOLLOW restriction.

[EJ]

No, they are not. Most people assume that. The blog software makers have decided that the NO FOLLOW tag should be used in comments. This is set as default in most of the major packages. You need to get a seperate plugin to be sure comments can be followed by the SEs. If you right click on a comment URL on a blog and select properties, you'll see that many blogs have NO FOLLOW. If you're looking to build your ranking in the SEs, you're wasting your time posting comments, except to have humans view the link. A SE spider will not see your site through the link. Focus your energies on blogs that do not have the NO FOLLOW restriction.

I just installed DoFollow

[bigp]

I just installed DoFollow

COOL!