Forty Plus Two

After moving to a host I had to decide which plugins to use in my WordPress. I asked around in my blogging network, did some research and here is a list of the ones I have installed.

Fight spam and stay safe.

Bad Behavior is my first line defense against spam. Bad Behavior complements other link spam solutions by acting as a gatekeeper, preventing spammers from ever delivering their junk, and in many cases, from ever reading your site in the first place. Take a look at the bottom of the page to see how many attemps that has been stopped so far.

Spam Karma 2 is the anti-spam plugin I decided to use. In combination with Bad Behavior it has (so far) kept spam away.

WordPress Database Backup is just that, a way to backup your database.

Search engines, analyzing and bookmarking.

The All in One SEO Pack helps me Optimize my WordPress blog for Search Engines (Search Engine Optimization). The author gives some useful information at All in One SEO Pack.

Google Analyticator adds the necessary JavaScript code to enable Google Analytics logging on any WordPress blog. This plugin is great since there is no need to modify anytemplates. Just get your code for Google Analytics, enter it under Options and you are up and running. Very smooth.

Google Sitemap Generator creates sitemaps for Google and will automatically notice Google whenever the sitemap gets regenerated.

Share This is a great plugin that makes it really easy for your visitors to add your post to various social bookmarking sites, or send a link via e-mail to a friend.

Added functionality.

I first used Contact Form ][ that creates a simple form to let people get in touch with you. But I have switched to Secure Form Mailer Plugin since the form requires a verification code which makes it more spam-proof. You can see the form on my Contact page.

Dofollow is a plugin that removes the no “follow” from comment links. I think commentors deserve a link back to their site.

Subscribe to Comments gives commentors a chance to sign up for e-mail notification of subsequent entries.

Old Post Alert gives a warning if the post is old, this gives people a chance to avoid commenting on old posts.

No Self Pings stops WordPress from pinging your own blog.

What about looks?

Themes will be dealt with in another post. But there are plugins that adds useful information to your blog.

Random Posts Widget displays a list of random posts in the sidebar. This is an excellent way of bringing old posts back into the limelight.

Snap Shots Plugin makes it easy to integrate the Snap Shots (formerly Snap Preview) functionality. Register for Snap Shots, enter your code, decide how you want it to look and it is up and running. No need to modify temlates which is great.

WhoLinked is a widget, place it in a sidebar and show a list of sites that link to your blog.

GeneralStats creates some stats info in a widget that can be placed in any sidebar.

Additional reading.

Are you curious about what some blogging pros use? Take a look at Alister Cameron’s Wordpress plugins used on this blog and at Blogging Expertise’s Our favorite WordPress plugins.

WordPress.org has a list of Plugins. Alex King has a list with his WordPress Plugins. At WordPress Codex is a list of Plugins/Posts Miscellaneous as well as a list of WordPress Widgets. Kyle Eslick has a post titled Best of: Wordpress Plugins. And then there is Weblog Tools Collection Wordpress Plugins. Average Joe Blogger has My Ultimate List of Wordpress Plugins.