Here are a few blog plugins that I find useful: Most Popular Post - this plugin let's you know which posts are the most popular among your readers. WP-Ban - is a plugin that will protect you against spam by allowing you to ban any ip address that continually spam your blog. Psychic Search - is a plugin that allows you to see what people are searching for on your blog and on Google so that you can better target your blog post topics. Wassup - is a plugin that will show you who or what crawlers and bots are visiting your blog as well as keeping stats.
Stay away from useless plugins, here is what you need: 1. All in One SEO 2. XML Sitemaps 3. Contact Form 7 4. SexyBookmarks 5. Askimet
These plugins are good: @Reply - twitter-like comment replies Broken Link Checker - this plugin looks for broken links Clean Options - removes useless options from wp_table Drastic Table Manager - simple MySQL database table manager External Links - lets you process outgoing links differently from internal links Feed Stats for WordPress Google Sitemap Generator Chap Secure Login Invisible Defender - great antispam plugin - no captcha, just two inputs are needed to be blank for adding a comment (spambots fill all inputs) No Self Ping - disables your own post pinging Popular Posts Plugin, Recent Posts Plugin, Similar Posts Redirection - redirects renamed posts, pages and allows you redirect everything you want Revision Control Show Top Comentators Subscribe To Comments - new comment reply e-mail notification WP DB Backup - backups your database WP No Category Base - removes /category from permalinks WP Polls WP Security Scan - scans your WordPress installation for security vulnerabilities and suggests corrective actions WP-Syntax - syntax highlighting using GeSHi library Enjoy!
Be careful about which plugins you use - some degrade the visitors experience by making pages load slowly. Use only plugins that actually provide a benefit for either the visitors experience or administrative purposes. Some must haves would be Disable Revisions and Autosave - keeps from having a bloated database Google XML Sitemaps - create sitemap for google Secure WordPress - for security WordPress File Monitor - for security good early warning if your blog gets hacked WordPress Database Backup - security and insurance in case of server problem or if you get hacked platinum SEO - Good but not great help on blog seo There are thousands more available but these are must haves in my opinion.
I don't have much to add that isn't covered. domainloco.net got the basics that you can't do without. Here's a few that I like: NextGENGallery - For picture management Smart YouTube - Customize the way videos display in your blog and embed more easily StatPress - All kinds of stats about your site WP-DownloadManager - For adding and managing downloads WP-Decoratr - Easily add creative common images to your posts I learned about a few new ones here...thanks for the good posts and thread. I'm sure there are dozens of threads on plug-ins...just saying.
I never heard of Psychic Search - is a plugin that allows you to see what people are searching for on your blog and on Google so that you can better target your blog post topics. I use search meter, but psychic search sounds cool WordPress Database Backup WP Captcha Free Count Per Day those are my three favorite