10 of the Best WordPress Plugins in 2010
Each day, I continue to be amazed at the ingenuity of the WordPress community. The plugins that are being developed each day are amazing.
A few months ago, I launched a collection of plugins called The 15 Best Plugins to Use in 2010 and today I’m adding 10 more plugins that deserve to be on that list. I personally use almost every plugin on this list and the only 1 or 2 that I don’t use come highly recommended from some of my very close friends.
10 More of the Best WordPress Plugins in 2010
- W3 Total Cache: This is an amazing improvement over my previously recommended WP Super Cache. This plugin allows minification (combining CSS and JS files), supports content delivery networks, rewrites html to remove line breaks, and much more.
- CommentLuv: You’ve probably already noticed that at the bottom of each post here at Site Sketch 101 there is a small piece of text that simply says “My Latest Blog Post:” and is followed up by a link to that reader’s most recent article. This is the plugin that makes that happen.
- Fluency Admin: This is the absolute best plugin for transforming the layout of your administrative control panel. Install this plugin and navigating throughout the admin side of your blog becomes a breeze…and it looks better.
- Frame Buster: Whenever someone lands on your site using a su.pr or an ow.ly link, you don’t get the credit for the visit. They do and it’s because they show your page inside of a frame. Essentially the visitor is viewing your site through a window on another website. This is the key to stopping that from happening.
- Popularity Contest: This plugin allows you to select the most popular articles on your website by using several factors to weigh their popularity: comments, pageviews, trackbacks, and more. And the best part is that you get to choose how much each factor weighs in the process.
- Widget Context: Have you ever wanted a sidebar widget to display only on certain pages throughout your blog? Well now you can have it. This plugin allows complete control over where on your site each widget appears.
- FD Feedburner Plugin: The cute little plugin allows you to redirect all of your feeds to your feedburner feed. Nobody will be able to subscribe to your WordPress created theme but only to your FeedBurner feed. This is a great way to get every subscriber into the Feedburner count.
- All-In-One SEO: Although I personally use and prefer HeadSpace 2 for my search engine optimization, many of my friends use this one as it offers a very simple way to optimize your pages for maximum exposure on Google, Yahoo and Bing.
- Revision Control: WordPress automatically creates multiple backups of every article as you are writing them. You can have dozens of copies of the same article sitting in your database bloating its size to 3 or 4 times the size that it should be. This plugin allows you to restrict the number of revisions that are saved to only the most recent few.
- YouTube with Style: This plugin creates a new style for your youtube videos and it makes it incredibly easy to add youtube videos to your posts.
Group Discussion
What plugins are you using at your site that I’ve not mentioned here and why should the rest of the WordPress community consider using them?
Are there any plugins on this list that you dislike…why?
Robyn from Sam's Web Guide said:
Great list Nick.
I was just wondering if the frame buster plugin affects the user’s experience.
Does the plugin seamlessly get rid of the ow.ly frame or is there a dialog pop-up message when the reader hits the site?
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Nicholas Cardot said:
It’s completely seemless. The user will probably not even notice it in action unless they just happen to remember that those particular links usually have a bar across the top.
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Patrick Toerner said:
Those are some cool plugins. I have a few of them, but others I have never heard of. I love plugins so I will have to check them out, specifically revision control, frame buster, and fluency admin.
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Nicholas Cardot said:
The main reason that I’m such a fan of revision control is because I use another plugin to back up my database every night by emailing it to me. This allows the database to remain small so that it won’t outgrow my email capabilities.
As far as Fluency goes, it won’t change anything that is life or death, but it will make browsing the backend to work on your site a whole lot more fun.
Anyways, I hope that you enjoy them!
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Hesham @ FamousBloggers said:
Nick, have you tried “W3 Total Cache” in a heavy traffic?
I have experienced some problems when one of the post on my blog reached the first page on Digg, the blog load was slow and went down till I went back to “WP Super Cache” again!
I love it’s features, but I think we shouldn’t forget that W3 Total Cache is not yet a full version!
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Nicholas Cardot said:
I’m not sure why that would be. I know that some really big sites use W3 Total Cache and I’ve never personally had any trouble with it.
Here’s a snippet from the W3 site to let you know who else is using it without trouble: “Trusted by many popular blogs like: mashable.com, pearsonified.com, noupe.com, webdesignerdepot.com, freelanceswitch.com, briansolis.com, tutsplus.com, yoast.com, css3.info and others.” These sites get tons of visits every day. It sounds like you probably had a setting messed up of something.
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Michael Aulia said:
Perhaps it needs to be set-up correctly? I read that it’s actually much better compared to WP-SuperCache.
I’m still using SuperCache though, because the set-up wasn’t easy
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Nicholas Cardot said:
That’s probably exactly what it is. There are a lot more settings with W3 Total Cache because of how many more things it has the capability of doing. With these extra options, it’s probably easy to set something that might not work well with some servers…especially like a shared hosting environment. I took the time to figure out all the settings on mine so I feel very confident with it. I’ve used some website speed testing sites to determine that mine is significantly faster with W3 Total Cache than it was with WP Super Cache.
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Hesham @ FamousBloggersTips said:
I think the problem was getting load of traffic while I am on a shared hosting, it’s probably not something on the settings on the plugin!
I agree that my site was faster with W3 Total Cache!
By the way, most of those sites you have mentioned are running on a faster hosting dedicated/VPS and probably this is why they will not got crashed by using any cache plugin
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Matt Stratton said:
Actually, I happened to implement W3 Total Cache with the CloudFront CDN right before my blog completely blew up on Reddit (receiving over 25,000 visitors in 24 hours) and it didn’t even blip. Not sure how much of that was a factor of the caching, and how much was due to the offloading to the CDN, but I know without it, I would have completely melted down.
Here’s some more details:
http://mattstratton.com/meta/tick-tick-boom
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Hesham @ FamousBloggersTips said:
Thanks for the information, I knew it! you won’t make it on a shared hosting!
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Aditya Kane said:
I think thats a pretty neat list. Have used most. Will have to check up what Fluency Admin is all about.
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Nicholas Cardot said:
I think you’ll like it. Everyone that I’ve shown it to has been happy with it. It makes browsing in the backend a lot of fun.
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Martin said:
Hey there – new to your site and I’m digging it! Your design is incredible and I’m lifting every idea off your site that I can…unashamedly I might add.
My $.02 would be Facebook Photo Fetcher – it’s a quick and easy Gallery if you are already uploading your photos to FB.
Keep up the good work!
Nicholas Cardot said:
Now that makes me wonder if they have a Google Web Albums / Picasa Photo Fetcher as that is the web albums that I tend to use. However, for the vast majority of people your plugin would be ideal. Most people tend to use facebook much more than I do. Thanks for the great idea.
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Aminul Islam Sajib said:
I only tried All in one SEO pack and I believe it’s amazing.
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Nicholas Cardot said:
Keep in mind that All In One SEO Pack is actually my second choice when it comes to SEO for a WordPress website. My first choice is actually HeadSpace 2 as it has a lot more options. However, since a lot of my friends use and enjoy ALl in One SEO Pack, I felt that even as a second place candidate it was still powerful enough to make the list.
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Derek Jensen said:
Nick, I’ve heard many talks about All in One SEO verses HeadSpace 2 and I was wondering if you could sum up your take on why you chose HeadSpace 2?
Or really anyone that uses HeadSpace 2 why do you use that and not All in One SEO?
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Sridhar Katakam said:
Derek:
Take a look at http://www.sitesketch101.com/headspace-guide and http://www.sitesketch101.com/headspace
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Derek Jensen said:
Thanks Sridhar! Since I am not that technical I might just have to stick with the All in One SEO.
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S.Smith - Real Taiji said:
I like your recommendations. I’ll try revision control in particular, I’ve been using wp-optimize to clean up after so many revisions.
I had a problem not too long ago… I had enough plugins that I over-used my web-host resources and got shut down. TCP Memory Usage Plugin shows me how much resources I use. W3C was one of several that used a lot of resources. I’ve trimmed back and I use hyper cache now because it’s much less resource intensive.
Frame buster’s excellent.
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Mohit Aneja - CSSJockey said:
Very useful list. I’ve tried quite a few myself and lists like these inspire me to create newer and better plug-ins. Would like you to checkout a few plug-ins I’ve made and may be pour in your thoughts.
http://www.cssjockey.com/topics/freebies
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andy said:
I have not really started using many plugins yet, but you are inspiring me.
I was going to do some boring yardwork later today, but instead I am going to have to take a look at these plugins.
Thank you very much! Have a great day!
- andy
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Tessa Shepperson said:
Thanks for this list I have installed several of them and particularly like the fluency admin one. It makes the admin area much easier to use.
Dennis Edell | Direct Sales Marketing said:
I’d love to chat about head-Space 2 sometime. I briefly installed in on the recommendation of an SEO I trusted.
OMFG could there be more STUFF to it?? LOL I realize more features means more coolness, but it was way overwhelming…gone now, but I’d love to learn it.
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Bruce said:
I found it really overwhelming at first too. I don’t think I really figured it out until after my second install. Once it clicks in your head it really isn’t that difficult. You don’t have to use all the bells and whistles.
If you ever have questions about it feel free to ask.
Dennis Edell | Direct Sales Marketing said:
“You don’t have to use all the bells and whistles.”
OK then, you’re insane. That’s handy to know ahead of time.
They’re there! They must be used! I’m getting a headache.
Problem 1 – I can’t tell a bell from a whistle from what actually needs to be used.
I’m B L A N K
Do you now know it ALL?
Seriously though, I’d be more then willing to throw something your way if we could “get together”… a little one on one – step by step HS2 schooling.
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Nicholas Cardot said:
Dennis, join my Skype chat room and my and my friends will explain everything that you need to know. I happen to have a very close friend of mine who is an expert at HeadSpace 2 and he is in this chat room and I’m very confident that he and myself would be happy to explain everything that you might like to know. My Skype username is NCardot.
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Dennis Edell | Direct Sales Marketing said:
Woops, I actually replied to the comment reply email. lol
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Ron Leyba said:
Thanks for this Nick. Really helpful for me. Will install the Framebuster and Fluency Admin now.
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Ed said:
Just added W3 Total Cache…The Super Cache plugin caused some issues for me a few times…Thanks for the great list…Anyone know a good plugin for a Twitter counter/Rss counter? Looking to add just the text in a file?
Thanks Nic….Keep up the amazing work!
David said:
Hey Nick. Any idea if W3 Total Cache works with WPtouch? I had to stop using the WPtouch plugin because when used in conjunction with WP super cache it often serves users the WPtouch version of the page. I had to disable it.
Anyways, nice list. Thanks.
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Matt S said:
I use W3 Total Cache alongside WPTouch and it works fine, although to get it to work properly I had to do some tweaking (as I recall, I needed to basically exclude the touch browser user agents from all W3 Total Cache settings).
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Nicholas Cardot said:
David » I agree with Matt. As far as I know it works fine. I don’t have any troubles with it as long as you exclude it from the caching.
David said:
Well, there you go. Thanks for the tip guys.
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Thesis WordPress Theme said:
I’ve used most of these plugins. They’re good and recommended. One that isn’t listed and that I use more and more lately is the WP-DBManager plugin from Lester Chan. I used to have challenges with this one, but once I learned the idiosyncrasies, it works great. Especially for clients to make sure they have their database backed up because for many, that is the last thing they concern themselves with.
Ileane @ Blogging said:
Hi Nicholas,
Thanks for the list. I’m wondering something about the Frame Buster plugin, if the frame doesn’t appear (especially in the case of su.pr) doesn’t that negate the whole reason for using the su.pr link in the first place?
This conversation came up on another blog and I’m still unclear about this. It reminds me of using a double negative in math. Let me know if I’m missing something there. Thank you.
@Ileane
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Nicholas Cardot said:
The main reason to kill a frame is to get maximum credit with third party statistics programs like Alexa.com. You don’t get credit for the visit with Alexa, Compete, and others. By breaking the frame and sending people directly to your site, you get the credit and therefore your rank can drastically change as a result.
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Ileane @ Blogging said:
I understand why you want to break the frame if someone else creates it. What I don’t understand is why the blog author would use ow.ly or su.pr to create the frame in the first place, if they are going to use the Frame buster plugin.
Does the question make sense?
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Nicholas Cardot said:
Yes. But I don’t recommend to any blogger to user su.pr or ow.ly. Any frame oriented link that points to Site Sketch 101 is a link that was created by someone else and I want them to be on my site when viewing my site and not on Stumble Upon’s site.
I used to use the su.pr URLs a lot but have since become convinced that the frame is a perfect way to distract people away from your site and so I stopped using it and I started breaking the frame of those who are using it to link to my site.
Of course, if you as the blogger are creating those links, then there is no point in breaking the frame. You probably have some reason that you want the frame. It’s really just preference.
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Ileane @ Blogging said:
Great, that’s what I wanted to know, because I remember seeing you use su.pr in the past. I stopped using it too for these same reasons. I use ow.ly sometimes only because it’s right there when I’m on HootSuite. But I think I’ll add it to my “nix” list too. Thanks Nicholas! You’re such a pro…
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Nicholas Cardot said:
Ileane @ Blogging » Thanks, Ileane. I’m glad that this answer worked for you. Don’t ever hesitate to bring questions like this to my attention.
Thesis WordPress Theme said:
I’ve used most of these plugins. They’re good and recommended. One that isn’t listed and that I use more and more lately is the WP-DBManager plugin from Lester Chan. I used to have challenges with this one, but once I learned the idiosyncrasies, it works great. Especially for clients to make sure they have their database backed up because for many, that is the last thing they concern themselves with.
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Nicholas Cardot said:
I believe that I have that one listed in my other list that I reference at the top of this article. I sue that one as well and I agree that it is terrific!
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Jeff Arnold said:
Nicholas:
Thanks for the list. #6 is something that I really needed. I hated having all my widgets on every page. This will really start to clean up my site appearance.
Thanks again,
Jeff
Nicholas Cardot said:
Your welcome and I feel the same way. I agree that some widgets only need to appear on certain pages or within certain categories.
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Reza Winandar said:
There is a lot of frame ripping site around us, so you better install the frame buster plugin!
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wackonerd said:
Re frame buster, Headspace 2 does this also.
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Nicholas Cardot said:
Good observation. I should have known that since I actually use HeadSpace. Thanks for pointing it out for me.
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Katie Mercado said:
You did the perfect job- great list.Thanks for this very walkthrough- saves a lot of time.
Danette said:
I loved the first 15 plugins and now I will have to try some of these. As a novice, you are making it much easier for me to get moving. Thanks!
Anthony V. Gibby said:
Hey Nick! It’s me again, finally getting back to this web stuff. I’m configuring a blog site, so I stopped by your site to look at the “The 15 Best WordPress Plugins To Use In 2010″. Whatta-ya-kno?!!! You got an update for me. Thanks man! Hopefully I’ll be see you guys in Blogger’s Lounge once again
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Matt Maresca said:
I just started my new blog and was in the process of installing the 15 plugins from your other list when I saw this one. Ah, more setup stuff that will make my blog cooler. I love it!
Matthew Nelson said:
Love the site! Thanks so much for the Word Press plug-in advice! After reading several of your posts and having a “plug-in installing party”—I finally feel my blog has some teeth (technically speaking!).
I do have a question though on a couple of plug-ins not mentioned in your 10 best list.
I use WP-touch and the Topsy Retweet Button. The button does not appear when I view my blog using the WP-touch mobile theme from my iPhone. Are you familiar with these two plug-ins and whether or not they play nice with one another?
I really like the functionality of the Topsy plug-in… but, also would really like for the Retweet Button to display when a post is viewed via the WP-touch mobile theme.
I would greatly appreciate any help you can offer! And, thanks again for the wealth of info available on your blogs!
Blessings!
Ed said:
Just installed the Feedburner and thinking about the youtube plugin…This site is where I come to get away from things and enjoy the blogging world…thanks NIC!
Nicholas Cardot said:
Ed » You’re welcome, Ed. I’m glad that you’re enjoying it.
Vinish Parikh said:
Great plug-ins, will definitely make use of all of them
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best SEO Company said:
Thanks for sharing such a useful word press plug-ins.
Mike said:
Great list of plugins, along with the first 15 you did. It can be a mission in itself finding your way through the masses of plugins coming out. So finding a list of good plugins really saves a lot of that work. Thanks for sharing.
Jay said:
Very very nice selections. Thanks
daniel said:
thankyou for tips!
Arnd said:
I just tested W3 Total Cache, previously I also have used WP Super Cache, which was annoying and destroying the CSS of certain plugins like S*xy Bookmarks. Nice!
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vignesh said:
google collection of plugins for wordpress..i just installed some this plugins to my blog..
Minki Kim said:
Hey Nicholas,
Job well done on another post!
I keep coming across how great CommentLuv is. My question is if you use this plugin along with other comment or greet-oriented plugins because I can’t get it to work w/o messing with HTML, which I try to avoid.
Your thoughts would be appreciated.
-Minki
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Jonathan Weatherhead said:
Nice list Nick. As usual I have learned from your blogging expertise.
I also find LinkWwithin very useful. It generates related posts from a cloud service, removing the burden from your blog. Very handy for shared hosting.
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Brian Kinkade said:
Awesome list!
These make WordPress such a great platform to use. Having the choice of tons of useful plugins to use. They pretty much have everything that you need to run a blog perfectly. Commentluv Premium is really great, it’s worth a try.