Whether you are a new WordPress blogger or a veteran one, you are probably using plugins to enhance WordPress‘ capabilities and automate tasks.
There are many plugins that provide the same function (for example, publishing new posts to Facebook), but some of them are buggy, have less features than others or not comfortable to use. Following is a regularly updated list of useful WordPress plugins, that I have gathered and personally tested. The list will save you a great deal of time searching and testing plugins.
If you are using a plugin that is not listed here and would like to recommend on, or would like to comment on a plugin that is listed here, you are most welcome to send in your comments.
Content Plugins
Enable Media Replace
If you ever wanted to replace an image or other media file in WordPress with another one, you had to:
- Create a new image
- Upload the new image
- Edit all posts that link to old image to the new image.
- Optionally delete the old image.
This process is OK if you have only one or a couple of posts with the image that you want to replace. But it is a tedious task to go over all posts and change.
This is where Enable Media Replace plugin comes to the rescue: it enables replacing media files by uploading a new file in the “Edit Media” section of the WordPress Media Library.
Download Enable Media Replace plugin here
Evermore
Evermore automatically abbreviates all posts when viewed on multiple post pages such as the blog home page, category pages, etc. This makes all posts behave as if there is a “<!–more–>” at an appropriate spot inside the content.
It makes the home page of your blog look way better than a long list of text and prevents search engines such as Google decreasing your site rank because of having duplicate content on both hone page and posts.
Link to Post
This plugin allows you to easily create a link to an existing post or page in another post or page by adding a “link to post” button on WordPress’ text editor.
Download Link to Post plugin here
Comments Related Plugins
Akismet
Akismet helps you filtering new comments by checking them against the Akismet web service. If a new comment is suspected as spam by Akismet, it will be automatically moved to the spam queue in WordPress.
Akismet nicely displays the number of suspected comments in the main dashboard screen. You can go through the suspected comments queue and mark the items as non spam or for deletion.
Security Plugins
Login LockDown
Adds some extra security to WordPress by restricting the rate at which failed logins can be re-attempted from a given IP range.
Download Login LockDown plugin here
Secure WordPress
Little basics for secure your WordPress-installation.
Download Secure WordPress plugin here
WordPress Firewall
Blocks suspicious-looking requests to WordPress and sends you alerts via email on such occasions.
Download WordPress Firewall plugin here
SEO Plugins
Meta SEO Pack
Fine tune your WordPress blog for SEO: title rewriting, meta descriptions, tags, robots, canonical links and more. Out-of-the-box settings are a good starting point for blogs.
Download Meta SEO Pack plugin here
Social Web Sites Integration Plugins
Wordbooker
Provides integration between your blog and your Facebook account.
Wordbooker displays on your Facebook wall an excerpt from the post, accompanied with any image or video that is linked in the post.
Download Wordbooker plugin here
WP to Twitter
Well written plugin that updates Twitter when you create a new blog post or add to your blogroll. It can take advantage of many URL shortening services:
- Bit.ly
- Cli.gs
- WordPress internal URLs
- Your own short URL service installed on your server by using YOURLS open source software.
Download WP to Twitter plugin here
Performance Plugins
HyperCache
Very fast cache module that speeds up the loading of WordPress pages.
Download HyperCache plugin here
Navigation Plugins
Page Links To
Allows you to point WordPress pages or posts to a URL of your choosing. Good for setting up navigational links to non-WP sections of your site or to off-site resources.
This is an informative post, thanks a lot!