15 must-have WordPress plugins
November 7, 2008 | In Developer, WordPressHere is my list of the top 15 must-have WordPress plugins
Akismet checks your comments against the Akismet web service to see if they look like spam or not. You need a WordPress.com API key to use it. You can review the spam it catches under “Comments.” To show off your Akismet stats just put < ?php akismet_counter(); ? > in your template. See also: WP Stats plugin.
Out-of-the-box SEO for your Wordpress blog.
Deny automated spambots access to your PHP-based Web site.
Unfortunately adds inline JavaScript. This alongside Akismet ensures you have a trouble-free blog. Mostly.
Contact Form ][ is a drop-in form that allows site visitors to contact you. It can be implemented easily (via QuickTags) within any post or page.
Seems to work well out of the box save for the inline CSS. Curiously lets you add an email ‘Subject Suffix’ but not a prefix.
Dagon Design Sitemap Generator
Generates a fully customizable sitemap.
I tend to modify the code for this plugin as I don’t like some of the code it produces.
Allows you to integrate the photos from a flickr rss feed into your site.
This plugin will generate a sitemaps.org compatible sitemap of your WordPress blog which is supported by Ask.com, Google, MSN Search and YAHOO.
As with the DD Sitemap Generator, I tend to tweak the code to get a better output.
Returns a list of the related entries based on active/passive keyword matches
This looks good although I confess I’ve not put it through it’s paces fully yet.
Simple Tags : Extended Tagging for WordPress 2.3 and 2.5. Autocompletion, Suggested Tags, Tag Cloud Widgets, Related Posts, Mass edit tags
Automatically add links on your posts, pages and RSS feed to your favorite social bookmarking sites.
Seems to work fine. A bit overloaded in terms of options. I tweak the CSS to ensure it validates correctly.
On-demand backup of your WordPress database.
Seems like a no-brainer.
Very fast cache module. It’s composed of several modules, this plugin can configure and manage the whole system.
Caching is good. I’ve not tested other similar plugins as this seems to work just like it says on the tin.
This plugin eases insertion of Jeroen Wijerings FLV Video Player.
I need to get more mileage out of this one before reporting issues.
Adds an AJAX rating system for your WordPress blog’s post/page.
Adds a sticky post feature to your WordPress’s blog. Modified from Adhesive by Owen Winkler.
I’ve used this for ages. Not sure why this functionality is in included out of the box with WordPress.
