wordpress plugins

Byq292u

Essential WordPress Plugins (Updated)

Why Use Plugins?

WordPress is immensely powerful straight out of the box, but it’s possible to add pretty much ANY functionality you want, and it’s usually for free.

OUR Favourites

This is a list of the TOP Plugins we use at q292u.com. Others may not agree.
They are in no particular order.

Right Now..

This is an UPDATED version of an updated version of an earlier post. There are SIGNIFICANT changes, as WordPress is such a moving target.

Here’s The List:

AKISMET

ESSENTIAL anti-spam system. Free to non-commercial users.
Filters out unwanted (spam) comments automatically, and provides stats on what it’s doing. ESSENTIAL.

WORDPRESS SEO (YOAST)

We now use this in preference to All-In-One-SEO-PACK. Allows us to tailor in-post SEO far better. Also handles Sitemaps. ESSENTIAL

BETTER WP SECURITY

Plugs all the holes we could find. Also handles backups. Excellent! ESSENTIAL

ADROTATE

Handles advertising on your site. Very comprehensive. Individual ads are created and then made into groups. You can then position the groups as widgets, in posts and on pages. Ads have start and end dates, and tracking can be switched on or off. Better than maxbannerads. ** The latest version has had features removed due to a “premium” version. Avoid this version. STRONGLY RECOMMENDED

WP AUTO TAGGER

Automatically adds relevant tags to your posts as you create them, based on post content. It’ll find tags you hadn’t thought of. STRONGLY RECOMMENDED.

AUTO POST THUMBNAIL

Automatically sets the “Featured Image” attribute of the post, based on the content. STRONGLY RECOMMENDED

HYPERCACHE

Excellent caching plugin, creates static version of all your posts and pages as they are created. Far better than SUPERCACHE. ESSENTIAL if you use a lot of plugins, or have a lot of visitors.
Get the “Clear Cache” Button plugin as well.

EXCLUDE FROM NAVIGATION

Some themes automatically add all pages to navigation menus. This is how to stop it. Adds a checkbox in the editor. ESSENTIAL.

SMART 404

Attempts to redirect 404 errors to relevant pages based on search query, and URL requested. Reduces bounce-rates. ESSENTIAL

Google Analytics (YOAST)

This adds Google Analytics tracking code to all your pages and posts, so you can keep tabs on everything. You need an analytics account. ESSENTIAL.

YARRP (Yet Another Related POsts Plugin)

Thsi is the best of it’s kind- Adds related posts links to your posts. Essential for internal links. ESSENTIAL

STOP SPAMMERS REGISTRATION

Blocks spammers from ever registering. Uses blacklists, etc so they can’t post. Nice. STRONGLY RECOMMENDED

COVERT SOCIAL CONTENT

We use this instead of FEEDWORDPRESS, due to performance issues. NOT FREE!
Strongly Recommended

COVERT SOCIAL BUZZ

Generates Likes/Tweets/etc. Not Free. Strongly Recommended.

WP SOCIAL POPUP

Pops up Social Links on accessing the site. Generates Likes/Tweets/etc. Strongly Recommended.

SOCIAL LOCKER (FREE Version)

Excellent! – Locks up content until the user tweets, likes, g+1 or whatever. STRONGLY RECOMMENDED.

Byq292u

Copy And Paste, Copy Paste, Cut And Paste, Free Offers, Nada, Open Web, Paste Content, traffic, wordpress plugins

Cut and paste | Attribution | Backlinks | CopyLink

We’ve been looking into the issue of site visitors using cut and paste to “steal” content. Not on this site, particularly, but on others.

The issue is that many visitors don’t use the built-in “share” functions – they simply copy and paste content into social media, or more often, e-mails. The problem with that is that the site doesn’t get anything back from this – no backlink, nada.

There are a couple of (paid-for) WordPress plugins which address this issue: Maxblogpress “bring my blog traffic back” (bmbtb), and “Covert Copy Traffic”, for instance.

Look a bit closer, though, and there is a FREE plugin called “copylink” which does most of the same. It may not be as polished, but hey, it’s FREE.
Copylink offers tracking facilities as well, so you can actually see who is copying, and what the actual content is. If someone IS seriously abusing your content, you can then block them.
Awesome!
We’ve rolled copylink out to most of our sites, and are monitoring the results…

We have no problem with visitors sharing content – if we did, we wouldn’t publish it on the open web. But we DO want the content to be attributed to our site.

Byq292u

ESSENTIAL Plugins for WordPress

WordPress is immensely powerful straight out of the box, but it’s possible to add pretty much ANY functionality you want, and it’s usually for free.

This is a list of the TOP Plugins we use at q292u.com.
They are in no particular order.

AKISMET.
ESSENTIAL anti-spam system. Free to non-commercial users.
Filters out unwanted (spam) comments automatically, and provides stats on what it’s doing. ESSENTIAL.

FEEDBURNER FEEDSMITH.
Redirects all RSS feeds to your Feedburner feeds. So you can control all RSS activity. From there you can do e-mail Subscriptions and much more.
Including automatic TWITTER integration! Get a feedburner account. ESSENTIAL.

ALL-IN-ONE-SEO.
Handles ALL aspects of SEO (Search Engine Optimisation). Options to rewrite article titles, handles Keywords, meta tags, everything. There’s also a “PRO version. You won’t need it. ESSENTIAL.

ADROTATE.
Handles advertising on your site. Very comprehensive. Individual ads are created and then made into groups. You can then position the groups as widgets, in posts and on pages. Ads have start and end dates, and tracking can be switched on or off. Better than maxbannerads. STRONGLY RECOMMENDED

WPTOUCH.
Creates a mobile version of your site on the fly. All you need to do is access the site via a mobile device. The interface looks like Apple iOs.
Very smart. ESSENTIAL There’s a PRO version as well.

WP AUTO TAGGER.
Automatically adds relevant tags to your posts as you create them, based on post content. It’ll find tags you hadn’t thought of. STRONGLY RECOMMENDED.

WORDBAY.
Add relevant eBay listings to your posts and pages. This plugin is NOT free, but it’s worth the money. Simply set it up, and use shortcodes to position ads. Now includes a widget as well. RECOMMENDED.

FEEDWORDPRESS.
Automatically creates posts on your blog, based on predefined RSS feeds. Excellent. RECOMMENDED.

QUICKCACHE.
Excellent caching plugin, creates static version of all your posts and pages as they are created. Far better than SUPERCACHE.
ESSENTIAL if you use a lot of plugins, or have a lot of visitors.

EXCLUDE FROM NAVIGATION.
Some themes automatically add all pages to navigation menus. This is how to stop it. Adds a checkbox in the editor. ESSENTIAL.

GOOGLE XML SITEMAPS.
Automatically generates and submits sitemaps to Google. You can also submit these to Yahoo and Bing, yourself. Helps with SEO. ESSENTIAL.

WORDPRESS-DB-BACKUP.
Automatically create scheduled database backups and e-mail to yourself.
Simple and effective. ESSENTIAL.

SMART 404.
Attempts to redirect 404 errors to relevant pages based on search query, and URL requested. Reduces bounce-rates. ESSENTIAL

Mail From.
Simply changes the return e-mail address for automatically-generated e-mail messages to something like “NOREPLY@domain.com”. ESSENTIAL.

Google Analytics.
This adds Google Analytics tracking code to all your pages and posts, so you can keep tabs on everything. You need an analytics account. ESSENTIAL.

SIMPLE SOCIAL BOOKMARKS.
Adds social bookmark icons to your posts. Allows your readers to recommend your posts on DIGG, REDDIT, SLASHDOT, etc. STRONGLY RECOMMENDED.

CONTEXTUAL RELATED POSTS.
Adds links to other relevant posts on your site. Engages visitors, and keeps them on your site longer. STRONGLY RECOMMENDED.

GOOGLE +1 BUTTON.
The new kid on the block. Allows visitors to mark relevant posts, adds kudos and visibility on Google.

FACEBOOK LIKE BUTTON.
Allows visitors to “LIKE” your site on Facebook. Facebook is a massive audience, not to be ignored. STRONGLY RECOMMENDED.

Byq292u

Access Database, Admin Functions, Admin Panel, Business Website, Dashboard, Doubt, Ingenious Solution, Messes, Notepad, Options, plugins, Running, Slider, Small Business, Supercache, wordpress, wordpress plugins

WORDPRESS: How to disable all active plugins, without access to the dashboard..

See my earlier post as to why I needed to do this:

WP-Supercache Ate My Website

My site was down. Dead. No access to the admin functions. The problem was a plugin gone bad (when I tried to disable it).

So, I needed to disable plugins, but couldn’t get into the admin panel.

The excellent support guys at Unlimited Web Hosting came up with this ingenious solution:

Here’s what you do: use CPANEL or PLESK to access the WordPress database of your site directly. It’ll be something like phpmyadmin. Details vary with web hosting firms. If in doubt, ask yours.

Browse the WP_OPTIONS table. Look for a record called “active_plugins”.
Copy the contents of this field into notepad, and save it, just in case.
Now go back to the database, and EMPTY the contents of “active plugins”, and save it. (you can always restore it from the copy you made).

Now access your site. It should come back up, but with no plugins running, so it’ll be weird. Now go into admin as usual, and re-enable all plugins one-by-one, EXCEPT the one that caused the problem.
I’d DELETE that one..

** DISCLAIMER. If you try this solution, and it messes things up, that’s your problem. I take no responsibility for it. It worked for me. **

** If it all goes wrong, simply restore the database from your backup. You DO have a backup, right? **

WORDPRESS: How to disable all active plugins, without access to the dashboard..

See my earlier post as to why I needed to do this..