/updated on Oct 8, 2013/
Here is a list of plugins that I use on this blog, in alphabetic order, all free unless otherwise mentioned. Every single one serves one specific purpose that I need on this blog so hopefully that helps you to find something useful to you as well. This list will be updated periodically to reflect any changes I’ve made on this blog, whether a new one I discovered and installed or an old one that goes out-of-dated and gets removed.
Akismet
It’s the default plugin that gets installed automatically with the new WordPress installation. It’s a simple solution to fight with the growing comment spams. In order to use this, you will need to get a API key from WordPress.com. It’s pretty much a set-and-go type of plugin that doesn’t really need your attention once it’s in place.
I don’t actually need this because I use the 3rd party commenting system Disqus, but thought still leave it on to keep the system clean.
Link: http://akismet.com/
All in One SEO Pack
An out-of-box SEO for every WordPress blog. Leave all settings to default should be ok in most cases.
Link: http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/all-in-one-seo-pack/
Crayon Syntax Highlighter
An awesome plugin to display the code snippets nicely in the post the way just like you are writing them in your favorite code editor.
My review: http://www.kjctech.net/crayon-syntax-highlighter/
Link: http://wordpress.org/plugins/crayon-syntax-highlighter/
Dagon Design Sitemap Generateor
It’s not about generating a sitemap that will be submitted to Google for search engine optimizing purpose. It’s for generating a fully customized sitemap that simply lists all content you have posted on the blog. It’s the page Archives on the top of the page.
Once it’s installed, you can customize the settings from the DDSitemapGen configuration page to suit your needs. And then, to implement, simply create a page with only one line in it.
<!– ddsitemapgen –>
Link: http://www.dagondesign.com/articles/sitemap-generator-plugin-for-wordpress/
Disqus Comment System
A comment system is both pretty and intuitive. A much better way to communicate.
Link: http://disqus.com/
FD Feedburner Plugin
The title says everything. What it does is to redirect all feeds to a Feedburner feed.
Link: http://flagrantdisregard.com/feedburner/
Google XML Sitemaps
And that is the one that generates an XML-based sitemap that gets submitted to Google for indexing the whole site. It’s a must-have one for every WordPress blog.
Link: http://www.arnebrachhold.de/redir/sitemap-home/
GTmetric for WordPress
A plugin that keeps you posted how the performance is about your WordPress website. It won’t help you improve the performance of your website but does help to notify you when the performance grade decreased.
Link: http://wordpress.org/plugins/gtmetrix-for-wordpress/
Jetpack by WordPress.com
Jetpack enables you to connect your blog to a WordPress.com account to use the powerful features normally only available to WordPress.com users. One of the features I love is the traffic stats built right in the dashboard.
Link: http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/jetpack/
Lightbox Plus ColorBox
No need to explain. It’s just a lightbox. There are actually many out there that work pretty much the same way.
Link: http://wordpress.org/plugins/lightbox-plus/
Limit Login Attempts
The specific plugin increases the security level for your website by locking out the IPs that reached the limit of login attempts. Very useful one if you have a website that has fairly high traffic coming in each day.
Link: http://wordpress.org/plugins/limit-login-attempts/
W3 Total Cache
My favorite caching plugin. If you want to speed up your site by turning on the caching for the site, forget about the Super Cache plugin, this Total Cache is way better.
Link: http://wordpress.org/plugins/w3-total-cache/
WordPress Related Posts
I used to use a service called LinkWithin to provide a list of related post at the bottom of every single post. But now, I am using this plugin instead because it provides a more simplified layout that seems like more fit to the site.
The plugin will find a list of related posts based on the tags on the original post. If it can find any, it will list 5 random posts instead. And of course, the number of related posts can be changed.
Link: http://wordpress.org/plugins/wordpress-23-related-posts-plugin/