Essential WordPress Plugins

by Dr Michael Baker
October 2008

Below are tables that summarise the first ten lists returned by a search for "wordpress essential plugins" on google. They appear, in the order returned by google, in the first ten columns below.

I've also consulted Lists of Essential WordPress Plug-ins. Where the lists were not alredy in the table I've added them from column 11 onwards. [The website for one list (Joe Brockmeir's) appears to have gone offline, so I used an archive copy from web.archive.org, but only got the first 5 plugins from his list as the second page is missing.]

Also listed below (in the first two columns) are the count and rank for each plugin.

The count is the number of essentials lists that each plugin appears in. Where several plugins appeared in the same number of lists, I compared the place they occured in the individual lists to obtain an overall position. I did this comparison by summing the inverses of the position the plugin occured in each list.

The rank is the position on the list, those plugins appearing in more lists having the smaller rank number. I have only ranked the first forty plugings. That is plugins that appeared in two or more lists. Those that only appeared in one list are listed in the table below unranked.

count

rank

plugin \ list by:

Jiannis Sotiro- poulos

Google (XML) Sitemaps

SEO #5

SEO #3

SEO #5

Akismet - stop comment spam

sec #1

ess #1

Subscribe to comments

social #3

promo #5

opt #4

func #1

Adsense-Deluxe - add google ads to posts

opt #6

ad #1

#10

#18

FeedBurner FeedSmith - ease integraition with feedburner

util #2

rss #1

RSS #10

#13

WP-Cache 2.0

#13

speed #1

ess #8

#18

speed #2

up date #1

WordPress Database Backup - automate db backups

util #20

sec #2

db #2

WP-ContactForm - way to contact without emailing

#11

#15

func #3

#19

Sociable - list most social bookmarking sites

ess #11

#16

func #6

social #5

Wordpress-reports - agregate admin stats

#14

stats #2

stats #1

Optimal Title - reorder as: Subject - Blog name

SEO #3

Simple Tags - Technorati Tags

ess #6

WP-Cron - scheduled tasks

db #3

Get Recent Comments

#15

flickrRSS for WordPress

util #5

des #3

#12

MyAvatars

ess #5

#11

SEO Title Tag - less power than HeadSpace

SEO #7

ess #12

SEO #4

wp-notable - add social bookmarking icons

social #11

#17

WordPress Mobile Edition - small version for mobile users

util #18

ess #7

#20

The remaining plugins only occured in one or two lists (out of 18). The next 20 below occured in two lists, the rest in just one list each.

count rank plugin \ list by: Design Meme David Dairey Mind- ful Geek Mi- chael Gray Jiannis Sotiro- poulos Donna Fonte- not Quick Online Tips Ben Yosk- ovitz Adam Hirsch Tech Roam Market Fed- eration Sam Ste- vens Dev- anshu Mehta tube torial Joe Brock- meier Sean Aune Calvin Woon Vlad Aki- lov

2 21 All in one SEO Pack SEO #1 #2

2 22= Gravatar #6 des #1

2 22= aLinks - auto link keywords opt #1 #6

2 24= wp-super cache speed #2 #2

2 24= Ultimate Tag Warrior - aids with Technorati tags #2 #2

2 26 Simple Tags - manage & suggestions maint #3 tag #2

2 27 Similar posts #2 promo #4

2 28 Trackback Validator - prevent trackback spam #3 spam #3

2 29 Static Front Page - use wp for conventional website #7 #2=

2 30 Popularity Contest - which posts are most popular? promo #2 #9

2 31 Subscribe me - add variety of "subcribe me" via ... #14 #2=

2 32 PodPress - add podcasts (mp3s) audio #2 #20

2 33 Search Meter - what people are searching for on site stats #3 func #5

2 34 Feed Footer - add ads, © or custom messages util #3 RSS #6

2 35 Sitemap Generator - HTML sitemap SEO #4 SEO #6

2 36 Head META Description #7 ess #4

2 37 WP-No Ping Wait - speeds posting #12 #5

2 38 Enforce www. Preference - 301 redirects for index.php & force www. or not www. ess #10 #6

2 39 Sidebar Widgets - arrange sidebar by drag-and-drop #8 #10

2 40 Related Entries #6 #21

1 del.icio.us - Bookmark this! #2

1 Digg This #3

1 Aizatto’s Related Posts SEO #2

1 Landing Site - suggest pages for searh arrivals #10

1 WP-Amazon #10

1 Contact forms #4

1 Autometa - meta keywords & Technorati tags #1

1 WP-Shortstat - where traffic coming from #11

1 Meta Robots WordPress plugin - auto add meta tags SEO #1

1 Cross-Linker - words to link to posts SEO #3

1 HeadSpace 2 - rewrite titles, meta data, etc. SEO #6

1 SEO Slugs - prevents overlong slugs SEO #8

1 Secure Form Mailer - multiple custom forms util #1

1 Flickr Photo Album util #4

1 Future Posts Calendar Plugin - useful for multiple authors util #6

1 Full Text Feed - use "more" & pub. full feeds util #7

1 GoCodes Redirection Plugin - tiny style URLs util #8

1 Got Banners - add banners without editing templates util #9

1 Highlight Author Comments - aid different style for author comments util #10

1 Objection Redirection! - aid setting 301s util #11

1 Wordpress Organizer - aid add & manage uploads & images util #12

1 Who Sees Ads - conditional ads util #13

1 Absolute Comments - aids replying to & managing comments util #14

1 Photo Dropper - aids adding CC licenced flickr photos util #15

1 Search Pages - adds pages to searches util #16

1 Permalink Redirect - prevent parameter'd page indexing util #17

1 Wordpress Automatic Upgrade - save many hours util #19

1 Increase Sociability - custom messages for visitors from digg etc. social #1

1 Share This - add buttons for social networks social #2

1 What Would Seth Godin Do - messages for new visitors social #4

1 Twitter Tools - integrate twitter functionality social #5

1 Close Old Posts - reduce maintenance & spam maint #1

1 Search and Replace maint #2

1 Blog Metrics stats #1

1 Configurable Tag Cloud - "simplest tool for tagging" tag #1

1 WP Tags to Technorati - send directly to technorati tag #3

1 No Self Pings SEO #2

1 Community Cloud - link to active readers promo #1

1 Popularity Contest Widget - "promote best stuff" promo #3

1 Contact Form promo #6

1 Chunk URLs - stop comment long URLs breaking design ess #2

1 FeatureMe - manage featured entries list ess #3

1 WPvideo - aid insert of online videos ess #9

1 Awsom News Announcement - put announcements above posts opt #2

1 Code Auto Escape - for user copyable HTML code opt #3

1 Add Sig - grab readers' attention opt #5

1 diggIT - dynamic digg button opt #7

1 Link Indication - add icons to outgoing links opt #8

1 Google Analytics ensures blog tracked by analytics #7

1 Google Adsense widget #1

1 AJAX Comments - easy and quick comments interface #3

1 Blogroll Page - display blogroll on a page #5

1 Google Analyticator - add analytics "unique code" #9

1 iWPhone - optimise for iPhone #10

1 Picasa Photos #12

1 ReCATPCHA #13

1 WordPress.com Stats #15

1 Share This - similar to sociable #17

1 WP Plugins Tracker - check all plugins are latest versions #19

1 Simple Recent Comments - lists recent commenters with links to comments func #2

1 ImageManager - browse, upload, manipulate images func #4

1 Corrector - add spell checking func #7

1 Search Everything - search pages, comments and more func #8

1 WP-Translate - read in any language func #9

1 Maintenance Mode func #10

1 Extended Live Archive - AJAXified way to dig into archives des #2

1 LightBox2 - javascript image overlay popus des #4

1 SparkStats - graph posting and commenting des #5

1 CSS Compress - compress stylesheets speed #1

1 WordPress Cache Inspect speed #3

1 Jeromes Keywords - add keywords SEO #1

1 xfish meta - add meta info to posts & pages SEO #7

1 Click Counter - add click counter to links stats #2

1 Spam Karma 2 spam #1

1 Bad Behavior 2 spam #2

1 Audio Player - add mp3s audio #1

1 Kimili Flash Embed audio #3

1 WP-phpMyAdmin - phpMyAdmin from backend db #1

1 Feed List - add other's RSS feeds rss #2

1 Show Top Commentators #5

1 Redirection - remove dup content without using .htaccess #7

1 InScript - embedding PHP scripts #9

1 WP-Wap - make blog work on mobiles & handhelds #11

1 WYSI-WordPress - add wysiwyg editor to backend #1

1 Notes - for backend #2

1 Counterize - collect simple stats #3

1 Unfancy Quote - remove fancy quotes inserted by wp #4

1 The Excerpt Reloaded - mod template fn the_excerpt() #5

1 Adsense - google ads in body of posts #2

1 Top10 - add list to sidebar #5

1 Textile1 - shortcuts for html tags #6

1 Dynamic Text Replace - shortcuts for frequent links #8

1 Feedvertising - run ads in blog's rss feed #3

1 Admin Drop Down Menu #1

1 Semiologic CMS - turn wp into a CMS #2

1 Admin menu - add admin menu to blog pages #3

1 Adhesive - sticky posts #4

1 DJ-Email-Publish - send posts to other blogs by email cross #1

1 Live Space Sync - import posts to Microsoft Live Spaces cross #2

1 LiveJournal Crossposter - posts latest entries to LiveJournal cross #3

1 Vox Crossposter - cross post to Vox cross #4

1 Xanga Crosspost - cross post to Xanga cross #5

1 Add to Any Subscribe Button - add subscribe buttons RSS #2

1 AddThis Sidebar Widget - add RSS & social bookmarking to sidebar RSS #3

1 DeCat - exclude some categories from feeds RSS #5

1 Feed Control - exclude posts, add pages to feeds & more RSS #6

1 Feed Master nRSS #8

1 Feed Styler RSS #9

1 FeedStats - stats on feeds RSS #11

1 Feedvertizer - add own text-link ads to feeds RSS #12

1 RSS Flashfeeder to Myspace - last 2 posts to MySpace page RSS #13

1 Slash Comments - add # of comments on posts to feeds RSS #14

1 Subscribe-Remind - add reminder to subscribe to end of posts RSS #15

1 Digg Button - add digg button in post social #1

1 Digg IT - another to add digg button social #2

1 JPF Add to Reddit - allows readers to submit posts to Reddit social #3

1 Share This - add multiple share buttons social #4

1 Social Bookmark Buttons - add major bookmark buttons social #6

1 Social Bookmarks Plugin for WordPress - access bookmarking icons social #7

1 Socializer Plugin - post to nearly 40 bookmarking sites social #8

1 SocialList - which posts submitted to del.icio.us & Digg social #9

1 Socialogs.com - allow submission to Socialogs.com social #10

1 WpHotSpots - track activity on several bookmarking sites social #12

1 Related Posts #5

1 Exec-PHP - use php in posts & pages #3

1 PXS Mail Form - mail form with multipart verification #6

1 Super Archive - dynamic archive #7

1 SRG Clean Archives - super clean archive #8

1 WP lightbox 2 - overlay images on current page, another version #9

1 fQuick - add sidenotes (in sidebar?) #10

1 CG-FlashyTitles - graphical flash titles #11

1 Gravatars - graphic next to readers' comments #14

1 WP Paginate - page navigation - try it & see #16