Which Wordpress Plugins are Really Useful?

Top 10 that you would recommend

[contentmaster]

Currently, I am maintaining 2 Wordpress Blogs. After trying out several themes, I have narrowed down to 2 which seem to be working well for my modest needs. However, the more I read about Wordpress, the more information I find and sometimes, all this information is a little hard to digest.

For example, there are so many additional plugins available and I am actually confused : Which ones are really needed and actually prove to be useful in the long run?

Here are some that I have tried to activate on my blogs:

1. SEO Title Tag
2. Google XML Sitemap generator
3. Akismet

Please add to this list. Which ones have been effective for your blog and which ones would you recommend others to use?

[ergophobe]

Every site:

- Akismet for sure
- Headspace2 - does what your #s 1 and 2 do and *tons* more. It's the WP SEO Swiss Army knife. Some people prefer the All-in-One SEO pack. HS2 lets you activate and deactivate modules
- WP Hashcash - added spam protection without CAPTCHA
- Secure and Accessible PHP Contact Form

As needed:
- Redirection - another John Godley plugin
- Exclude Pages from Navigation - if you pull nav from pages in a widget but you have some pages like Terms and Conditions or some such that you don't want in the main nav
- Lightbox Plus - image display
- Popularity Contest - sort by weighted popularity

I also just started using WP Greet Box, which customizes the landing page for visitors depending on whether or not they have a cookie set and based on referrer

I dont' have all of those on any one install.

[ergophobe]

Nobody else?

[spadilla]

These are a few of my favorites that I use on several sites (my own and client sites):

All in one SEO pack - Always worked well for me with a set of standard rules. There are newer more spiffy ones out now, but I've stuck with this one.

Disqus commenting system - it allows some added functionality to commenting that I like.

Secure and accessible PHP contact form - I use this on all of our WP sites. It's simple, light weight and regularly updated by the dev.

Maintenance Mode - Take the site offline if needed. Generally use this one when the site is about to go live. It allows for a custom "splash page" of sorts that keeps the public out, while clients work on content etc.

Page Links To - Super-handy for pointing links in a main menu to category pages etc. without having to hardcode them in the template.

Role Manager - Gives clients access only to certain things in the backend. Mini ACL like. (there are several other plugins that work with this one based on what's needed).

XCloner - Backup and site cloner. I started using this about 5 years ago on Joomla sites. When the dev made a WP plugin I jumped on it. It's not the most intuitive and it does cost $$, but the dev is great and I've cloned many-a-site with this tool (as well as cron backups).

[mhansen]

OZH Admin Menu

I like the OZH Admin Menu - not for any technical reason, but it moves the WordPress menu from the left side, and into a horizontal nav bar across the top. Gives you a MUCH larger work area.

Broken Link Checker (Janis Elsts)
PixoPoint Menu System (Pre WP3.0)
Robots Meta
YARPP (Yet another related post)
WPBackup (Sends a daily DB backup)

MH

[ergophobe]

I just discovered cforms II - I needed a contact form that would have several fields, some required, some not (first name, last name, email, phone, arrival date, departure date, number in party, comments; all required except comments).

So the Secure and Accessible PHP Contact Form plugin I usually use wasn't up to that, but cforms is. It allows for all sorts of fields, including Javascript popup date pickers, regex validation rules, built in email validation and more.

[BradleyT]

Is there a cache plug-in or something already in the admin dashboard? I just started collaborating with a few guys on some WordPress sites and our first site seems pretty slow [compared to the Drupal sites I'm used to building].

[ergophobe]

Wordpress doesn't have built-in caching to my knowledge, but the WP Super Cache plugin is similar to Boost for Drupal

[lorax]

>> our first site seems pretty slow

Themes and plugins could be the culprits - at least in part. WP Super Cache is an outstanding speed enhancer.

My contributions are far more basic then some might expect from me but they are very useful.

MailChimp

TweetMeme

WP Super Cache

Breadcrumb Navigation XT

ShareThis

[Go60Guy]

Here are a few I use regularly:

All in One SEO Pack
Google XML Sitemap Generator
Maxblogpress Ping Optimizer
Privacy-Policy
Simple Tags
Smart 404
wordpress-firewall.php

[ergophobe]

Thanks Go60 and lorax - a few in there that are new to me that look useful. Anyone else?

[alika]

I like

1. MobilePress - for a mobile version of my blog. Plays well with W3 Total Cache
2. W3 Total Cache - needed something for making the site load faster
3. Broken Link Checker - makes it very easy for me to track and change links that no longer work
4. Simple Facebook Connect - for the complete suite of FB functionalities, from their share button, like, fan box widget, connect to FB widget, etc.

What plugin do you use to give you the tabbed widget on the sidebar -- where you can have in one tab Recent Posts, and another tab Recent Comments?

[ergophobe]

Alika, sometimes it's built into the theme. Otherwise sidebarTabs looks nice.

There are a bunch of options though
[wordpress.org...]

[alika]

Thanks Ergophobe ... I was able to actually make that work LOL.

[SuzyUK]

pretty much the same as what's been said. +1 more that no-ones mentioned.. pretty link

useful in so many ways I don't think I've even figured them all out yet.

[smallcompany]

Which WP traffic statistics plugin you use (other then GA)?

[alika]

There are plugins that are quite useful -- e.g. WPBackup --but haven't been updated for 500+ days.

Do you still use these plugins? Or do you go only for plugins that are being updated? What risks do you have in using them?

[Go60Guy]

I've heard that plugins that aren't updated to work with recent WP versions often can represent security holes. I'd be leery of any plugin that hasn't been updated in over a year. Face it, sometimes it seems that there's a newer version of WP every time you have breakfast.

[alika]

Another plugin I like is To-Dos. I use it to put in ideas of what to write. My problem is that I keep writing my ideas in various notebooks or pieces of paper or in my iPhone. But this plugin forced me to centralize everything and help me remember things I need to do for the site.

[koushikrajagopalan]

Platinum SEO plugin
Buddy press
These two combination can make a website excellent.

[iNET_SEO]

I use these on every Wordpress site I use now... (These are their exact names)

WP-Optimize - Many options for keeping Wordpress clean

AddToAny: Share/Bookmark/Email Button - one of the better share buttons

All in One SEO Pack - About as good as it gets without going overboard

Contact Form 7 - Very good contact form that is so easy to configure and install

Dagon Design Sitemap Generator - Works like a dream and does what it says on the tin

Exclude Pages from Navigation - Another that does what you expect

Google Analyticator - Analytics code for Wordpress sites

Google XML Sitemaps - Makes building sitemaps a doddle

My Page Order - The most straight forward way to order pages

Really Simple CAPTCHA - Works very well with the Contact Form

WP Super Cache - The best way to speed your site up

Hope a few of those help :)

[spadilla]

I have to add one more (sorry)! I just discovered W3 Total Cache not too long ago and it's awesome! I use Amazon S3 to store cached files and this plugin is really, really good! I went back and installed it in allof my Wordpress installs and when tested with yslow all of them showed an impressive speed improvement.

[ergophobe]

>>add one more (sorry)!

Why sorry? That's the point of the thread - another one I don't know. That's great!

[contentmaster]

Thanks! I was wondering if anyone else has seen this message in their dashboard - Not sure what needs to be done - All in One SEO Pack must be configured. Go to the admin page to enable and configure the plugin.

Also, when I try to upgrade the plugins, it leads to a 500 Internal Server Error.