With the recent release of WordPress 2.3, the WordPress team took a popular and much needed WordPress feature known as tagging and integrated it directly into the software itself.  This is one of a few recent examples where WordPress has actually built popular existing plugins directly into their software. 

To me, this is crucial to the growth of WordPress, as plugins are often bulky and can have a lot of extra code that is not needed.  This can cause a lot more resources to be used than would otherwise be required, as well as cause some security vulnerabilities.  In other words, the more plugins that are built directly into the software, the better off we will be as WordPress users. 

Another plugin that I think is a strong candidate for integration into the WordPress software is a fairly new plugin from Keith over at Techie Buzz called WordPress Automatic Upgrade.   WPAU is an incredible plugin that had been attempted on several occasions, but Keith was the first person to create a reliable way to automate the process for upgrading WordPress.  If you already tried the plugin and had problems, you may have been using an old version.  I have used the latest version on 3 different sites and it worked perfectly, so I recommend you give it another trying using the newest version of the plugin. 

In order to use this plugin, simply upload and activate it.   Once activated, you will see a new option under Manage called Automatic Upgrade.  The plugin walk you through all the steps needed to upgrade WordPress, including checking over your current installation, putting your blog into maintenance mode, and even grabbing the latest version of WordPress from the official download page.

If you have a standard WordPress installation, I highly recommend using this plugin to keep your WordPress software up to date.   As has been previously documented all over the blogosphere, it can be a significant security risk to use an outdated version of WordPress. 

If you’ve ever run a Group Writing Project before, you probably know that they can generate a lot of traffic and a large number of inbound links if done properly.   They can also help you to introduce yourself to a large number of potential readers that you might not have otherwise met.   Running these projects, however, are often more work than you bargained for when you decided to host one.  It can often be a headache to manage your submissions and collect all the posts into one place for publishing.

Fortunately, it doesn’t have to do be this way if you are a WordPress user.  The WP-Submission WordPress plugin was created for situations like this, where you want to accept submissions for something.   This plugin will actually create a submission form that you can refer participants to.  As entries are submitted, a post draft is automatically created and continues to add additional submissions to the end of your post draft until your contest is completed.  You can then edit your post to say/look how you want, and then publish your list of participants.

If you don’t intend to run a group writing project, Jason Blanton has made a post over at Blogging Tips suggesting some alternative uses for this plugin.   It would also be a good fit for people hosting Blog Carnivals and Link Round Ups.

Over the coming months, I will gradually be compiling an ongoing list of my favorite wordpress plugins into a single post that will hopefully prove useful to those that are new to WordPress. Included in the post are brief descriptions of what each plugins does and links to full reviews I’ve done of each individual plugin.

A little while ago Stasys actually took this a step further by compiling a list of the Top 3o of the Most Popular WordPress Plugins. Stasys actually went through and compiled a list of the most popular plugins recommended by various WordPress users and tallied them. He then figured which ones are the most often recommended.

For your reference, here are the top 5 most recommended plugins from around the blogosphere:

1. Akismet
2. Google Sitemap Generator
3. Related Posts
4. WP-Contact Form
5. WP-DB Backup

I have no real complaints with these 5, although I’m surprised Related Posts wasn’t #1. To see the other 25, click over to Staska!

If you are a WordPress user, you are probably aware that their are hundreds (if not thousands) of great Wordpress plugins scattered all over the internet.  These plugins are created by your fellow WordPress users that want to make the software better and more functional, and most are available to you at no charge.  Of these plugins, many I would consider to be situational plugins, but there are a few that all WordPress blogs should use in my opinion. 

Subscribe to Comments is one of the important plugins that every blog should offer to their readers. This plugin will automatically place a subscription box in your comments form and allow your readers to receive e-mail notifications each time a follow up comment is left on your site.  If you’d prefer to tell the plugin where to display the box, you can do so by placing the following code into your comments.php file where you want the subscription box to appear:

<?php if (function_exists('show_subscription_checkbox')) { show_subscription_checkbox(); } ?>

I recommend placing this just above the Submit button (or whatever your button says to submit the comment). This will allow readers to see the “subscribe box” before reading the comment and check it if they want to be notified of any responses to their comment.  

It is important to note that you should NOT have this box checked by default (you can control this in your plugin’s Option panel).  This will significantly annoy potential commentators as well as turn away some readers.  I’ve noticed a few websites that have it checked by default and there is nothing more frustrating than leaving a comment and finding out you were subscribed to a post you commented on against your will.  Make the box visable and people will use it if they want notification.   I will sometimes check this box when I want to see any follow up comments, but I generally will not comment on sites that have this checked by default.

Have you ever noticed those blogs that seem to automatically generate content? Typically they are done in good taste, maybe linking to a small portion of one of your posts and providing a link to the source. There are a few ways to accomplish this with WordPress, but one method is the free WP-o-Matic WordPress plugin.

This WordPress plugin allows you to add/import your feeds and sort them into campaigns and categories for easy management. You can then automatically generate posts from the feeds of your choice. Additional features include the ability to relink specific words as well as rewriting words within posts.

WP-o-Matic is actually a pretty well done plugin, but has the potential for abuse in the wrong hands. I recommend people that download this plugin use it responsibly and always only post excerpts of others works and provide a link to the source.

Edit: There is now a premium WordPress plugin available called AutoBlogged, which is a MUCH more advanced version of this plugin.   It has a small fee, but the plugin will quickly pay for itself!

I’ve mentioned before that there are a lot of crucial WordPress plugins that all blogs should use; however, this one I’m going to talk about is not one of them. Instead, this plugin is a great plugin for certain types of blogs that have several anchor posts that are their claim to fame.

This plugin is called Popularity Contest, and what is does it automatically monitor the traffic on your blog and displays a designated number of your most popular posts. This helps funnel new readers to the best and most popular work in the hopes of retaining them as a feed subscriber. It also has the additional benefit of showing a permanent link on every page of your blog’s sidebar, which will send a little search engine link juice to these posts and help emphasize them with search engine spiders.

How do I set up this plugin? As with most plugins that involves the sidebar, you will have to manually insert some code in order to get it working properly. Once you’ve uploaded and activated Popularity Contest like normal, you’ll find that this plugin is pretty easy to set up. You’ll want to determine where you want your popular posts to be displayed in your sidebar and paste the following code:

<?php if (( (is_home()) or (is_single()) or (is_page()) or (is_search() or (is_404()) or ($notfound == '1'))) && (function_exists('akpc_most_popular'))) { ?>
<h2>My Popular Posts</h2>
<ul><?php akpc_most_popular(); ?></ul> <?php } ?>
<?php if ((is_archive() && is_month()) && (function_exists('akpc_most_popular_in_month'))) { ?>
<h2>Most Popular Posts of <?php the_time('F Y'); ?></h2>
<ul><?php akpc_most_popular_in_month(); ?></ul> <?php } ?>
<?php if ((is_category()) && (function_exists('akpc_most_popular_in_cat'))) { ?>
<h2>Most Popular Posts in '<?php single_cat_title(); ?>'</h2>
<ul><?php akpc_most_popular_in_cat(); ?></ul>
<?php } ?>

If you use this code above, it will not only display your most popular posts in your sidebar, but it will actually add your individual categories most popular posts to that particular category, and display the most popular archive posts within your individual monthly archives. This will help improve navigation for readers digging through your blog’s categories and archives, in addition to your main pages.