When site owners new to WordPress discover what plugins are, they often go wild and install plugins that add an incredible amount of unnecessary functionality to their site.
The problem is, many plugins are of very poor quality and thus full of security holes. Adding a lot of poorly-coded plugins will also slow your site down dramatically, and you probably know how I feel about that.
So I’ve put together a small list of plugins that I use on this site and would recommend on the basis of their utility and quality. I hope you find it useful:
- Redirection: dead simple 301 and 404 management.
- Login LockDown: protects against brute force login attempts.
- Akismet: still the best comment/spam protection plugin available.
- WordPress SEO: the most comprehensive SEO plugin I’ve found.
- W3 Total Cache: the swiss army knife of web performance plugins.
- VaultPress: a backup plugin (and service) from the people who make WordPress.
- Google Analytics for WordPress: granular and advanced control over you analytics.
As the date for my first live WordPress event in NYC draws closer, I will publish a few more technology-related posts.