Top 5 Must Have Plug Ins for WordPress

[Web Res]

Hello Again,

I'm setting up a new wordpress blog and I'm a bit overwhelmed by all the plugins. With thousands of plug ins to choose from, I thought it might be best to list the most useful must have plug ins.

Plugins for managing Ads and Adsense, Friends and FriendConnect, Twitter, Images, Posts and SEO, RSS and feed submissions, social book marking and track backs, plus heaps of other things I don't know about.

If you're setting up a new Blog what are your Top 5 Must Have Plug Ins for wordpress?

[SteveGerencser]

These are the plugins I install on every single blog I own -

Akismet (not that it should count)
Lightbox 2.0
SEO Title Tag (some people prefer the all in one SEO packs)
Sociable

After that it depends on the purpose of the blog..

[inertia]

I usually go for wordpress seo master, askimet, sociable, feedburner, breadcumbs, related posts and whatever others are needed for the particular site. A lot gets done at code level as well.

[SteveGerencser]

I hate feedburner.. It has been so worthless since Google bought them I just stopped bothering with it..

Related posts can be great.. Haven't played with breadcrumbs at all.. I'll install it on a new blog tonight and play with it..

[Orion]

These are the plugins I install on every single blog I own -

Akismet (not that it should count)
Lightbox 2.0
SEO Title Tag (some people prefer the all in one SEO packs)
Sociable

After that it depends on the purpose of the blog..

I'll have to check out the SEO and Sociable ones...

FYI.. try autothickbox and save on code. Wordpress comes with thickbox already there instead of adding lightbox too it just use the existing thickbox files .. 'auto thickbox' lets you do that nicely..

[Final Expense Leads]

For me the top five are:

wordpress Backup by BTE - must-have backup plugin
CommentLuv
Akismet
DoFollow
AStickyPostOrderER

[Orion]

My top 5 are constantly changing as newer better plugins are invented or WP incorporates stuff (like export for backups:

auto-thickbox
share-this
my-category-order
wp-sticky
all-in-one-seo-pack (may change soon been reading up on alternatives)

also used..
twitter-for-wordpress but found it just easier to install the code from twitter.com in a text widget in most cases
google-sitemap-generator auto sitemaps great for blogging sites
breadcrumbs (awesome on larger deep sites!)
eshop (if you have a few products to sell)
contact-form-7 (for forms)

I think that's about got it
many of the ones I used to use have been integrated now (love it!)

Hope that helps!

[mohsho]

I only have one wordpress site at the moment:

http://www.shoresabbatical.info/

but I used the following plugins:

- WPG2
- Exec-PHP (I used it to display a progress bar for a date countdown)
- WP-Sticky (I used it to keep my progress bar at the top of the page)
- Peter's Date Countdown Widget
- WeatherIcon
- Sidebar Widgets

[Ravenhawk]

Me I use the following on almost all wordpress sites I do.

All in One SEO Pack
Count Per Day
Sidebar Login
WP-reCAPTCHA
StatPress Reloaded

And if its a World of WarCraft blog which many of the ones I setup are I include this great one from http://timsworld.nfshost.com/wow-armory-wp-plugin/
WoW Armory

[inertia]

Another couple for the list - wp-pagenavi (very easier pagination plugin) and c-forms.