My ten must-have WordPress plugins

published Feb 22, 2006, last modified Jun 26, 2013

Hot on the heels of this meme, here I come with my list of WordPress plugins everyone should have. Okay, okay, these are the plugins I think I couldn't live with:

  • My own Rudd-O's Wordspew. A shoutbox is quite an effective medium for informal communication, which is what blogs are all about.
  • The WordPress XHTML validator. Keeps all those HTML bugs in the closet.
  • WordPress AutoLink. Kiss goodbye to link rot in your blog.
  • Akismet. No spam. Period.
  • PHP Markdown Extra. I guess writing HTML just became orders of magnitude easier.
  • Gravatars. Put a face to faceless comments.
  • bsuite. Without bsuite, you're blogging blindfolded. Of course, I made some enhancements that I've kept to myself for the time being.
  • Search reloaded. What's nearly impossible to believe is that Search reloaded functionality is still absent from vanilla WordPress.
  • Redirectify. To build a rich information hierarchy and give myself some buffer for persistent hyperlinks which make sense.
  • LMB^Box FilePress. Managing uploads? With FilePress, never been easier.

Okay, that about sums it up. I feel these plugins are an absolute must for any blogger. And, for only $40 (payable via PayPal), I'll package them up and send them directly to you, ready to be perused, installed and activated as you see fit.