I consider some plugins mandatory, or more accurately the function of certain plugins to be indispensable. Plugins such as Askimet, All in One SEO Pack, and Google XML Sitemaps. The plugin, Featured Content Gallery, is essentially part of my blog theme so I consider that mandatory also.
Listed below are my Top 10 Favorite WordPress Plugins, in alphabetical order. My purpose is not to demonstrate how they work but to bring their existence to your attention. I have used all of these plugins for quite some time and have had them function correctly and consistently.
1. AZIndex
A highly customizable and user friendly plugin to create one or more alphabetical indexes of selected posts in your WordPress blog.
Get Plugin: AZIndex
Author plugin site: English Mike
Plugin use example: Rickety and Rickety
Related article: How to Create An Index For Your WordPress Blog
2. Broken Link Checker
Checks your blog for broken links and missing images and notifies you by email or on the dashboard if any are found.
Get Plugin: Broken Link Checker
Author plugin site: Janis Elsts
Plugin use example: See adjacent screenshot.
3. Do Follow
The dofollow plugin for WordPress lets you remove the evil nofollow attribute from your comments.
Get Plugin: Do Follow
Author plugin site: Denis de Bernardy
Plugin use example: View source on this comment page. You will not find the rel='nofollow'
attribute inserted after www.congressionallotterypool.com.
Related article: How to not NoFollow
4. Exclude Pages
Provides a checkbox on the editing page which you can check to exclude pages from the primary navigation.
Get Plugin: Exclude Pages
Author plugin site: Simon Wheatley
Plugin use example: See adjacent screenshot.
5. Tabbed Widgets
Place widgets into tabbed and accordion type interface.
Get Plugin: Tabbed Widgets
Author plugin site: Kaspars Dambis
Plugin use example: In the sidebar see the accordion interface holding Recent Comments, Today’s Popular Posts etc.
6. Top 10
Count daily and total visits per post and display the most popular posts based on the number of views.
Get Plugin: Top 10
Author plugin site: Ajay D’Souza
Plugin use example: In the sidebar see Today’s Popular Posts and Most Popular (Since April 1st).
7. WP-DB-Backup
WP-DB-Backup allows you easily to backup your core WordPress database tables. You may also backup other tables in the same database. Backups can be delivered by email.
Get Plugin: WP-DB-Backup
Author plugin site: Austin Matzko
Plugin use example: See adjacent screenshot.
8. WP-Polls
Adds an AJAX poll system to your WordPress blog. You can easily include a poll into your WordPress’s blog post/page. WP-Polls is extremely customizable via templates and css styles and there are tons of options for you to choose to ensure that WP-Polls runs the way you wanted. It now supports multiple selection of answers.
Get Plugin: WP-Polls
Author plugin site: Lester ‘GaMerZ’ Chan
Plugin use example: See poll in sidebar.
9. WP-Stats
Display your WordPress blog statistics. Ranging from general total statistics, to Most Commented Posts.
Get Plugin: WP-Stats
Author plugin site: Lester ‘GaMerZ’ Chan
Plugin use example: See Most Commented Posts in sidebar.
10. Yet Another Related Posts Plugin
Returns a list of related entries based on a unique algorithm for display on your blog and RSS feeds. A templating feature allows customization of the display.
Get Plugin: Yet Another Related Posts Plugin
Author plugin site: Michael Yoshitaka Erlewine
Plugin use example: See Related Posts (Auto Generated) at end of this post.
David H. Sundwall says
Thanks. I haven’t heard of some of the first ones and they look interesting.
rickety says
The Broken Link Checker is very useful if you want to keep your links up to date. Sometimes it reports falsely but most of the time it is regularly catching broken links.
elmalak says
It’s really amazing how different people look to this subject.
I am a WordPress designer and I also have my favorites, which include two of these and a lot of different ones as well.
Here is my list of must-have plugins.
http://www.103graphics.com/10-great-plugins-i-recommend/
Hope you find them useful.
thanks.
Socrates Wordpress Theme says
Glad to see this list. Thanks! One of my favorite plugin is The dofollow plugin. Let you remove the evil nofollow attribute from your comments. Because nofollow will not work.
@juxamist OriexmedOperA says
Hi!
I’m re-twit you post: to my @juxamist twitter