So,
without having to actually look at your site, which are your favorite WordPress plugins?
Why that stupid rule? Simple - if you have to look at your site to remember what it is, it obviously has not had that big an impact on you. The exception to the rule is that if you can remember the plugin (that spam-blocker thingie) but can't remember the name, feel free to look up the right name, but only after you've written it down.
A few of mine
Name: Headspace2
Where: [
urbangiraffe.com...]
Category: SEO
In Brief: SEO Swiss Army Knife
What it does: It helps with so many tasks, such as:
- Custom meta titles
- Custom "Read more" text (and thus anchor text)
- Custom pretty much any meta info (description, keywords)
- Batch editing of all of the above
- Add follow/noindex to your category, archive, search pages
- Custom titles, meta description and so forth for your category, archive and search pages
- Allow you to add special stylesheets and javascript only to specific pages (I don't use that feature.
- Automates adding Google Analytics, Mint, Statcounter or other analytics code - just enter your account number and you're done
Alternatives: In this case, there are some excellent alternatives. Possibly, the combination below is even superior. I don't know, but I have used them all and all work well as far as I can see.
- All-in-one SEO Pack [wp.uberdose.com] has many of these features, but does not have the universal batch edit ability, custom stylesheet, custom "more" text.
- Joost de Valk's Robots Meta Data plugin [joostdevalk.nl] can also handle the follow/noindex stuff and perhaps just a bit more elegantly.
- Joost de Valk's Google Analytics plugin [joostdevalk.nl] is also nice for the analytics part.
Name: WP Hash Cash
Where: [wordpress-plugins.feifei.us...]
Category: Anti-spam
In Brief: Stop spam without wasting your commenters' time or yours.
What it does: It requires users to submit a "proof of work" which, in this case simply means a click from form that has the one-time hash that the plugin generates. Unlike a CAPTCHA, the "work" is transparent to the user, but very hard for a robot to simulate. Unlike Akismet, it catches the spam at the source, rather than filtering after the fact. This has cut down on my spam dramatically.
Drawback: The one drawback is that users must have Javascript enabled.
Alternatives:
- Akismet. Comes with WP by default and works great but with thousands of spam comments, how can you ever sort through and see if some valid comments are getting stopped? You can't, so you have to just delete them all.
- Various CAPTHCAs [google.com]. I find that as captcha breakers get better, I'm having more and more trouble breaking them, and it's a waste of time. I like the RECAPTCHA concept [recaptcha.net], but waiting for a third-party server to serve up the image was slowing things down beyond acceptable limits. Maybe it will get faster.
Name: Popularity Contest by Alex King
Where: [alexking.org...]
Warning: Broken in WP2.5 (fix found) [alexking.org]
Category: Content display (for lack of a better term)
In Brief: Show most popular posts.
What it does: Using weighting that you can tweak, based on page views, comments, trackbacks and such, it keeps a list of your most popular content..
Alternatives: I haven't used these, but they look like they would do the job
- Most Wanted [boakes.org] doesn't have the complex weighting (which may be good or bad depending on what you want), but does let you limit the period (so most visited in the last 30 days). That's a nice feature (not sure if Popularity Contest has that or not).
