All of these plugins are free (as in cost) and are plugins I have used on my sites or client sites.

I’m doing this as a reference for myself but also as a way to provide information to you.? If you are looking for a plugin to do a specific job you can check here first to see what I use for that.

This is not to say I’m some kind of “expert” regarding which plugin is the best.? There are probably well over 1000 plugins out there and I hardly know them all.

Important point – more plugins make your blog slower.? Try to keep them to a minimum.? I went nuts with plugins when I starting using WordPress.? Now I look to remove any plugins I don’t feel are required.? If a plugin isn’t doing something really important for your site – get rid of it.? If it’s only serving as eye candy then it’s probably not important.

Additionally, any plugins or themes you are not using create an additional security risk for your site.? If you are not using it don’t only turn it off, delete the files as well.

I will be modifying this list over time.

Plugins I recommend for use with WordPress:

Versions numbers listed below are current at the time I’m updating this page.? Latest update was in January 2014.? The descriptive information is from the plugin author, not from me.

[My comments about a plugin will be formatted like this.]

Ad Injection – Injects any advert (e.g. AdSense) into your WordPress posts or widget area. Restrict who sees the ads by post length, age, referrer or IP. Cache compatible. – Version 1.2.0.16 | By reviewmylife | Visit plugin site

Akismet – Used by millions, Akismet is quite possibly the best way in the world to protect your blog from comment and trackback spam. It keeps your site protected from spam even while you sleep. To get started: 1) Click the “Activate” link to the left of this description, 2) Sign up for an Akismet API key, and 3) Go to your Akismet configuration page, and save your API key. – Version 2.5.9 | By Automattic | Visit plugin site

BackWPup – WordPress Backup Plugin – Version 3.1.1 | By Inpsyde GmbH | Visit plugin site | Documentation | Support

[I’ve tested a number of plugins that will perform backups and so far this one is the best.? You can back up only the database or your entire site or anything in between.? Run backups manually or scheduled.? Email them to yourself, send ’em to Dropbox or other options.? So far it’s been solid where others have failed.]

Better Delete Revision – Better Delete Revision is based on the old “Delete Revision” plugin – Version 1.2 | By Galerio & Urda | Visit plugin site

[If you are like me and save you post/pages often you’ll have a ton of revisions cluttering up your database.? This plugin will easily remove them.]

Bit.ly Shortlinks Multisite (OAuth 2 Compatible) – This plugin replaces the default WordPress shortlinks with Bit.ly shortlinks for your single site or multisite WordPress network. – Version 1.2 | By Denis Lam | Visit plugin site

Blubrry PowerPress – Blubrry PowerPress adds podcasting support to your blog. Features include: media player, 3rd party statistics, iTunes integration, Blubrry Services (Media Statistics and Hosting) integration and a lot more. – Version 5.0.3 | By Blubrry | Visit plugin site

Broken Link Checker – Checks your blog for broken links and missing images and notifies you on the dashboard if any are found. -Version 1.9.2 | By Janis Elsts | Visit plugin site

[Runs automatically and provides an easy interface to fix or delete or edit broken links.? I don’t know how I lived without it.]

Category Checklist Expander – Shows all the categories in the checklist on the post editing screen -Version 1.0.1 | By Mark Jaquith | Visit plugin site

GRAND Flash Album Gallery – The Grand Flagallery plugin – provides a comprehensive interface for managing photos and images through a set of admin pages, and it displays photos in a way that makes your web site look very professional. – Version 3.20 | By Rattus | Visit plugin site

Google Analyticator – Adds the necessary JavaScript code to enable Google’s Analytics. After enabling this plugin you need to authenticate with Google, then select your domain and you’re set. -Version 6.4.7.3 | By Video User Manuals Pty Ltd | Visit plugin site

Jetpack by WordPress.com – Bring the power of the WordPress.com cloud to your self-hosted WordPress. Jetpack enables you to connect your blog to a WordPress.com account to use the powerful features normally only available to WordPress.com users. -Version 2.7 | By Automattic | Visit plugin site

[Jetpack has a slew of modules that do all sorts of things.? WordPress stats for your site, publishing to Facebook Twitter, Linkedin and Google+, contact forms, additional options for displaying photos, and more.? Another one I wouldn’t want to be without.? It’s on all my sites.? You need a WordPress.com account but you can use the same account for multiple sites.]

Meteor Slides – Easily create responsive slideshows with WordPress that are mobile friendly and simple to customize. -Version 1.5.1 | By Josh Leuze | Visit plugin site

NextGEN Gallery by Photocrati – The most popular gallery plugin for WordPress and one of the most popular plugins of all time with over 9 million downloads. -Version 2.0.57 | By Photocrati Media | Visit plugin site | Get help

[NextGEN is one of the most popular WordPress galleries.? There are a slew of plugins that will work with NextGEN.]

[What I really like about this one is you can also point it to other websites and pull in related content from them. They don’t have to be your sites either.]

P3 (Plugin Performance Profiler) – See which plugins are slowing down your site. Create a profile of your WordPress site’s plugins’ performance by measuring their impact on?your site’s load time. -Version 1.4.1 | By GoDaddy.com | Visit plugin site

podPress – The podPress plugin gives you everything you need in one easy plugin to use WordPress for Podcasting. Set it up in ‘podPress’->Feed/iTunes Settings. If this plugin works for you, send us a comment. -Version 8.8.10.17 | By Dan Kuykendall (Seek3r) | Visit plugin site

Tweet&Get It! – Tweet&Get it! is an automatic process to get Twitter followers in exchange of a downloadable file. – Version 1.1 | By Tweet & Get is powered by Viuu / Via Internet UK LTD | Visit plugin site

TwentyTen Advanced Header – Turbo-Charge your twenty ten header! – Version 1.0 | By Cool Ryan | Visit plugin site

[Assign a different header image to different post catergories.]

Ultimate Tag Cloud Widget – This plugin aims to be the most configurable tag cloud widget out there. -Version 2.6.1 | By Rickard Andersson | Visit plugin site

WassUp Real Time Analytics – Analyze your visitors traffic with real-time stats, charts, and a lot of chronological information. Includes a sidebar widget of current online visitors and other statistics and an admin dashboard widget with chart. For WordPress 2.2 or higher. Caution: don’t upgrade when your site is busy! – Version 1.8.3.1 | By Michele Marcucci, Helene Duncker | Visit plugin site

Weaver II Maintenance – Weaver II Maintenance – Maintenance Tools for Weaver II -Version 1.2 | By Bruce Wampler | Visit plugin site

Weaver II Theme Extras – Weaver II Theme Extras – Adds shortcodes and other features to the Weaver II theme. -Version 2.1.2 | By Bruce Wampler | Visit plugin site

[You only need these two if you are using the Weaver II theme.]

WordPress.com Popular Posts – Shows the most popular posts, using data collected by WordPress. – Version 2.6.0 | By Frasten | Visit plugin site

WordPress Editorial Calendar – The Editorial Calendar makes it possible to see all your posts and drag and drop them to manage your blog. – Version 3.0 | By Colin Vernon, Justin Evans, Joachim Kudish, Mary Vogt, and Zack Grossbart | Visit plugin site

WordPress SEO – The first true all-in-one SEO solution for WordPress, including on-page content analysis, XML sitemaps and much more. – Version 1.4.23 | By Joost de Valk | Visit plugin site

WPtouch Mobile Plugin – Create a slick mobile WordPress website with just a few clicks -Version 3.1.9 | By BraveNewCode Inc. | Visit plugin site

[If your theme is not responsive WPtouch is one way to make it mobile device friendly.? You should not use this if you theme is responsive unless you can turn off the responsive functionality of your theme.]

WP Updates Notifier – Sends email to notify you if there are any updates for your WordPress site. Can notify about core, plugin and theme updates.- Version 1.3.2 | By Scott Cariss | Visit plugin site

[If you are using WordFence you don’t need this as WordFence will do the same thing for you.]

Yet Another Related Posts Plugin – Returns a list of related entries based on a unique algorithm for display on your blog and RSS feeds. Now with Now with thumbnail support built-in! – Version 4.0.4 | By mitcho (Michael Yoshitaka Erlewine) | Visit plugin site

Security Plugins:

Additional Security Notes:

Your login name should not be the same as your display name.
Use a strong password.
Go into your main directory and delete the files wp-config-sample.php, readme.html and license.txt
Delete install.php in the wp-admin folder.? Each time up upgrade WordPress it will create a new one.? Either delete it each time or replace install.php with a blank file named install.php.

AntiVirus – Security solution as a smart, effectively plugin to protect your blog against exploits and spam injections. -Version 1.3.5 | By Sergej M?ller | Visit plugin site | Flattr | PayPal

Botnet Attack Blocker – Temporarily block all admin logins after multiple failed attempts – helps to prevent brute force botnet attacks from multiple IP addresses.- Version 1.9.1 | By Misha von Bennigsen | Visit plugin site

BulletProof Security – Website Security Protection: BulletProof Security protects your website against XSS, RFI, CRLF, CSRF, Base64, Code Injection and SQL Injection hacking attempts. One-click .htaccess WordPress security protection. Protects wp-config.php, bb-config.php, php.ini, php5.ini, install.php and readme.html with .htaccess security protection. Security Logging. HTTP Error Logging. One-click Website Maintenance Mode (HTTP 503). Additional website security checks: DB errors off, file and folder permissions check… System Info: PHP, MySQL, OS, Server, Memory Usage, IP, SAPI, DNS, Max Upload… Built-in .htaccess file editing, uploading and downloading. – Version .47.9 | By Edward Alexander | Visit plugin site | Forum – Support | Upgrade | Flash Movie

Exploit Scanner – Scans your WordPress site for possible exploits. – Version 1.3.3 | By Donncha O Caoimh | Visit plugin site

iThemes Security – Protect your WordPress site by hiding vital areas of your site, protecting access to important files, preventing brute-force login attempts, detecting attack attempts and more. – Version 4.0.5 | By iThemes.com | Visit plugin site | Get Pro Setup | Get Support

Login LockDown – Adds some extra security to WordPress by restricting the rate at which failed logins can be re-attempted from a given IP range. Distributed through Bad Neighborhood. -Version v1.5 | By Michael VanDeMar | Visit plugin site

ThreeWP Activity Monitor – Plugin to track user activity. Network aware.- Version 2.11 | By edward mindreantre | Visit plugin site

Wordfence Security – Wordfence Security – Anti-virus and Firewall security plugin for WordPress -Version 3.8.9 | By Mark Maunder | Visit plugin site

WordPress File Monitor Plus – Monitor your website for added/changed/deleted files – Version 2.2 | By Scott Cariss | Visit plugin site

WordPress Firewall 2 – This WordPress plugin monitors web requests to identify and stop the most obvious attacks. -Version 1.3 | By Matthew Pavkov | Visit plugin site

WordPress Sandbox

Sandbox for WordPress Art & Science

WordPress plugins I often use.

Plugins I recommend for use with WordPress:

Security Plugins: