Richard has been asking me for a while what WordPress plugins I use on this site. As Darren Rowse of has recently put up a list of his active plugins in a post called I’ll Show you Mine if You Show me Yours (WP Plugins). I thought it was time to share my list of “Must Have” WordPress plugins. So here is my list of must have WordPress plugins:
- Spam Karma 2
- No other comment spam blocking plugin works as successfully for me.
- Gravatars
- Easily integrate gravatars within your site.
- InSeries
- Provides navigation controls for next/previous within a connected series of posts.
- WP-ContactForm
- A drop in contact form.
- WordPress Database Backup
- An excellent backup plugin.
- WP-CC
- The original WordPress Creative Commons licensing plugin.
- Subscribe To Comments
- An excellent plugin which allows your readers to subscribe to the comments for a post.
- CJD Notepad
- Draft posts to your hearts content.
- WordPress Version Check
- Ensure you get visible notification of new WordPress releases within your dashboard.
- FixBack
- Fixes trackback and pingback URLs when publishing draft posts.
- Permalinks redirect
- Ensure everyone is viewing my posts via their one true permalink.
These lists don’t include every single plugin that I am using but they represent the plugins that I would install on a new WordPress install before I even started posting 😉
Hello. This is a great post. I thought I would stick my 2 cents in and give you my must have list of plugins too..
My must have plugins include:
Bunny’s Technorati Tags – For SEO and Technorati links
Digital Fingerprint – To keep scrapers having to display my sig in article
Dagon Design Sitemap Generator – SEO, 404 page, sitemap
Fold Page List- Expand sub pages for asthetics
Fold Category List – Expand Category list for asthetics
Google Sitemaps – No Brainer
In Series – For articles that I have series and want to show related
Jerome’s Keywords – SEO
List Subpages – list subpages
Link Indication – Show Arrows after external links on whole site
Optimal Title – SEO and correct format for titles
Post Updated – Show when the post was updated if it was
Post Teaser – Show part of post on page to click for more..
Plugins Used Plugin – show all plugins used
References – show where I refer to in posts
Related Posts – show related links, SEO, user friendly
WP-ContactForm – must have to contact, easiest for me to use and config
WP-EMail – so people can email an article
WP-Print – so people can print user friendly format of post
WP-GenericFooter – I add a symbol at end of each article so known its the end.
Sorry the list is so long, but these are my must haves for any WP site I do