Hello All -

If you're a WordPress "BlogMaster," then you've got to love plugins. Question is... which ones, since there are over a thousand (1,278 listed at WordPress.org... and probably a few more out there). I'm including a Poll with some interesting questions related to the plugins -- you can choose more than one answer.

I am going to give you my top ten, links to their websites, and refer you to some how to articles (sometimes they come with their own "learning curve"):

• AdSense Manager - A must if you run Adsense ads on your blogs
• Configurable Tag Cloud - If you like tag clouds (and find your readers do), then the stylistic control this plugin gives you is great for design integration
• Dagon Design SiteMap Generator - This creates a sitemap you display (not the secret one you show only to Google)
• Google XML Sitemaps - This creates the secret map that only Google sees and is updated each time you post
• HeadSpace 2 - A sort of Mega SEO plugin with a lot of control over Meta data, titles, descriptions, stylesheets and other goodies (take a good look at the "other goodies"). Overview Tutorial.
• OneClick Installer - Install plugins AND themes with one click! This is a plugin and a Firefox extension that work together to make your life a lot easier -- no FTP required. Installation requires chmod work -- see tutorial.
• Popularity Contest - Learn which posts you write are the most popular... a great way to get automatic feedback for future blog story ideas. You can display the most popular in a sidebar widget.
• Sphere - Here's a plugin that ties you into "sphere" of influence with well known bloggers and new agencies, by related content. See overview article. TIP: Once you install Sphere, use it yourself to find out who's writing similar articles, then visit those blogs and make comments -- what goes around, comes around... in the Sphere.
• WordPress Automatic Upgrade - I've used this one several times... and it works great. Make sure you do ALL the steps as presented, and backup as you go.
• WP Cache - This plugin helps speed up the user experience at your WP blog by caching pages. You have good administrative control of what gets cached and when.

There ya go. I look forward to the discussion, your own favorite plugins, and your poll votes.

Yours,
Scott

Hello BlogMasters -

Just curious... anyone try those plugins? Anyone recommend some other plugins?

Yours,
Scott

AddThis, Akismet, and some custom jscript.

I might give WP Cache a try. I find my nav bar can take a while to load ... it's toward the end of the markup, so I'm curious as to why. It's probably worth giving this a try. I don't really see any reason to install a sitemap plug in if your blog is spiderable, though? I might be overlooking something, but...?

I don't know whether Google's webmaster console or analytics strictly count as plug ins, but I wouldn't want to do without either of them.

I only use Akismet for spam filtering. Anything else, I hack.

http://www.websiteforumz.com/showthr...=6626#post6626 heres a few

Hi Forrest Croce & All -

You are right that your site is automatically spiderable -- without using the Google XML sitemaps plugin. There are some good advantages to using the Google XML sitemaps plugin as well:

• The plugin automatically pings Google, Ask.com & Yahoo when new pages are added -- so you don't have to wait for their spiders
• You can take control of what pages get spidered and which do not
• Google actually recommends this and requires a separate XML sitemap if you decide to use its webmaster tools at: http://www.google.com/webmasters/start

Thanks for the link, AudioMad... I'll check those out.

Yours,
Scott

One that is more unique to my site is the TDOMF plugin. It allows visitors to come in and write posts themselves, with or without registering, as a form of "guest blogging".

I tryed the adsense manager thing, and it didnt work

I will give some of the others a try

Woc

I use a rating plugin that lets my visitors rank each post on a scale of 5 stars. I have a small movie review blog, so that allows for interaction between me and my readers!

I use the All-in-one SEO and SEO slugs Wordpress plugins.

I purchased and used Auto Social Poster for my all wordpress blogs and it really works great. you can just go through www[dot]autosocialposter[dot]com

^ Sounds a bit like spam to me

(notice how on that webpage, the tagline reads "submit to top bookmarking sites, without *looking* like spam)

One more plugin I think is a must is WP stats:
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/stats/

It gives important blog info like referrers, page hits, traffic graph, etc. Very useful IMO.