The Plugins I Always Install
Comments & Spam
Akismet
it doesn’t quite catch it all alone, but it’s a good start at combating spam in WP
Comment Reply Notification or Subscribe to Comments Reloaded
the first provides a checkbox for users to be notified of replies to their comments, the second has a drop-down option so they can choose to keep up with all the comments on a specific blog post, or just the replies to their comments
Backups, Optimization, & Security
BackWPup
Must-have plugin: emails your database and/or file backups to you hourly, daily or weekly. (Additional similar plugins include WP-DB-Backup, WPDBManager, WordPress Backup to DropBox, and BackUpWordPress.)
Health Check
keep you up-to-date on whether you need to upgrade your PHP version or anything else before the next WP upgrade
Limit Login Attempts
keep the hackers at bay by blocking their IP address after a specified number of failed login attempts
No Self Pings
gets rid of the annoying pingbacks when you link to your own posts
WP Super Cache
cache your pages so that traffic spikes won’t make your server crash or throttle
SEO, Social, & Stats
WordPress SEO
set your default Facebook thumbnail, add custom text to your RSS feed, create a sitemap, and so much more — all in one plugin!
Digg Digg
quick-loading social sharing buttons from the guys who created Buffer
Google Analyticator
puts your Google Analytics stats right in your dashboard — and easily eliminates Google from tracking visits by you and other site authors (see instructions & more from WPBeginner here)
nrelate Related Content
my new favorite “related posts” plugin, since YARPP took too many site resources
Additional Plugins I Use Sometimes
Contact Form 7
add any number of highly customizable contact forms for your site
FD Feedburner
easily point your feeds to your FeedBurner account if you don’t have a theme that automatically redirects your feeds (check out WPBeginner’s step-by-step guide for setting up FeedBurner)
Compact Archives
provides a neat and clean dated archives section on the archives page, instead of a long list of months (check out WPBeginner’s directions here)
Auto Post Thumbnail
automatically sets the first uploaded image as the featured image thumbnail when you hit “publish”
JetPack by WordPress.com
adds WordPress.com features to your site, including sharing buttons, contact form, and stats
Editorial Calendar
if you schedule your posts in advance, this drag-and-drop plugin may be a lifesaver!
CodePress Admin Columns
this is a handy way to eliminate all the extra columns that pugins like Yoast’s SEO plugin add to your post/pages views
WordPress Mobile Pack or WPtouch
plugins to make a mobile-friendly version of your site if you don’t have a mobile-responsive theme like Genesis Prose
Advanced Plugins I Use
Search Regex
change your site URL and need to change every image link? easy. want to eliminate your last name from your posts? simple.
Widget Logic or Dynamic Widgets
define appearance of widgets based upon what pages, categories, etc. they should be in (WL allows you to write all the PHP rules yourself — DW gives you checkboxes for each page/category/etc.)
Generate Post Thumbnails
if you began blogging in something other than WordPress, this plugin is invaluable for using thumbnails–it generates thumbnails from the first image to appear in the post, even if it’s on an external server!
P3 (Plugin Performance Profiler)
find out which plugins are making your site load slowly
WP-Optimize or WP-DBManager
great tool for optimizing your database and removing post revisions from within the WordPress dashboard
Maintenance Mode
for when I’m in the midst of a big site change
Greg’s Threaded Comment Numbering
even though I think every theme should have this feature built in
Plugins for Group Blogs
Draft Notifier
get an email when one of your contributors submits a draft for review
Edit Flow
full of features for the flow of editing posts and providing editorial comments
Members
redefine roles and capabilities of your site contributors (or keep your site hidden from anyone but logged in users when it’s in development)
Public Post Preview
handy option to give guest posters a public preview link to see their post before it goes live
