A Look at the 25 Most Popular WordPress Plugins

With the success of WordPress, there have been thousands of developers working on the project to help members make the most of the “open” platform of developing plugins and widgets to extend the system to new heights.

Event though there are many that come into good use, there are a few that users have consistently said were the best, making them the most popular and widely used. These aren’t necessarily my favorite, but the plugins that contain:

• A good set of features and does what it says.
• A background for providing quality service and support to users.
• A method of increasing the power or usefulness in the eyes of the user.
• Multiple versions, for different languages and users.
• Satisfaction/star ratings of at least 3.5-4.5.

Again, this post is for the person who may just be exploring WordPress for the first time and will help you get an idea of what people look for when they first begin browsing the Plugin Directory.

Listings are by average/number of downloads per day, not by total downloads. All are compatible with WordPress 2.7 or higher.

1. WP Super Cache

Purpose: Creates static HHTML files from your dynamic WordPress blog. Especially useful if your blog is frequently under periods of heavy traffic. There are configuration options if you want to change who sees the dynamic or static pages, as wlel as “custom caching.”

Total Downloads: 452,439

2. All-in-One SEO Pack

Purpose: Helps to automatically optimize your blog and allows the customization of several key items, such as titles, keywords, and descriptions from within a separate backend panel. The ultimate plugin for those of you who have never practiced Search Engine Optimization or want to quickly increase their rankings.

Total Downloads: 1,451,237

3. Contact Form 7

Purpose: Allows you to create and manage multiple contact forms, making it the premier choice when choosing a form for your website. It has been translated into multiple languages since its launch in mid-2007.

Total Downloads: 346, 075

4. WordPress.com Stats

Purpose: Breaks down stats into an easy-to-read format, but contains a snapshot of what you are really looking for. All of this information is placed into your blog’s backend administration panel. You use your API Key to use the feature. It doesn’t slow down your server because it is hosted off-site.

Total Downloads: 637,194

5. Google XML Sitemaps

Purpose: Creates Google sitemaps compliant with XML standards of your WordPress blog. There are some configuration instructions and features that allow you to manage your sitemap and what is included. All major search engines support the sitemap this plugin creates, including Yahoo, MSN, Google, and Ask.

Total Downloads: 910,841

6. Simple Tags

Purpose: Called the perfect manager for tags in WordPress 2.3 through 2.8, this plugin has become more secure and has increased performance over other plugins and previous versions. Some of the features include: related tags, AJAX admin features, tag suggestion, automatic tagging, automatic linking, importing of tags, and more.

Total Downloads: 232,957

7. Add to Any: Share/Bookmark/Email Button

Purpose: Designed to make it easy to share, bookmark, save, and email your posts and pages using nearly any service, this plugin places a button on your site so you don’t have to code any buttons or have the task of selecting just a few of the many services. The plugin is WordPress optimized, includes Google Analytics integration, and is localized in various languages.

Total Downloads: 193,132

8. NextGEN Gallery

Purpose: Allows you to integrate a fully functional gallery into WordPress, which includes a Flash slideshow option. Better than the default gallery option, as it includes template options, media RSS feed, role settings, AJAX-based thumbnail generator, and the ability to copy and move images between galleries.

Total Downloads: 682,732

9. Google Analyticator

Purpose: Adds the necessary JavaScript code to enable Google Analytics for any blog. Essentially, you input your code and you’re ready for tracking, eliminating the need to customize your template every time you change the theme. Includes Google Analytics API support, stats widget, external link tracking, download link tracking, and more.

Total Downloads: 179,164

10. WP-SpamFree Anti-Spam

Purpose: A powerful anti-spam plugin that eliminates blog comment spam, including trackback and pingback spam. The new version includes several new features and options. It is easy to install and doesn’t inconvenience your blog’s visitors who are trying to leave a comment.

Total Downloads: 143, 776

11. Global Translator

Purpose: Automatically translates your blog into 41 different languages, and will use services like Google Translation Engine, Babel fish, Promt, and FreeTranslations to create the best translation. Other features include: a fast caching system, fully configurable layout, search engine optimized permalinks, and no database modifications.

Total Downloads: 122,373

12. Viper’s Video Quicktags

Purpose: Adds a new button to the Write screen to add a video to one of your posts. You can configure the settings, including how videos are displayed on your blog. It also uses valid XHTML, if this is a concern. Supports nearly every video site and format, including: YouTube (plus playlists), Google Video, DailyMotion, Vimeo, Veoh, Viddler, Metacafe, Blip.tv, Flickr videos, Spike/iFILM, MySpaceTV, Flash, QuickTime, and other formats.

Total Downloads: 226,821

13. Google Analytics for WordPress

Purpose: Automatically tracks and segments all outbound links from within posts, comment author links, links within comments, and any other statistics worth tracking. You can also track AdSense clicks, add extra search engines, track image search queries, and more.

Total Downloads: 223,622

14. WP-PageNavi

Purpose: Adds advanced page navigation to your blog, beyond the default next and previous page links.

Total Downloads: 186,839

15. WP-Cumulus

Purpose: Displays your site’s tags, categories, or both using a Flash movie that rotates in 3D. This is a newer popular plugin that just recently became popular.

Total Downloads: 148,768

16. Akismet

Purpose: Included by default with WordPress, this plugin is designed to prevent spam on your blog.

Total Downloads: 1,026,361

17. Sociable

Purpose: Adds individual images to your blog relating to the popular services that you can use to share your content and blog with others.

Total Downloads: 247,059

18. Twitter Tools

Purpose: Completes the integration between Twitter and your blog. Functions in the following ways: archives your Twitter tweets (every 10 minutes), creates a blog post form each of your tweets, creates a daily or weekly digest post of your tweets, and more.

Total Downloads: 147,625

19. WP e-Commerce

Purpose: A free shopping cart plugin for Wordpress that makes it easy to add an area to your blog for selling products, services, or anything with fees.

Total Downloads: 142,071

20. GD Star Rating

Purpose: Enables a “star” rating feature to your blog’s posts, pages, and comments. There are many configuration options, but it is still quite easy to use. There are dozens of features that you can make use of.

Total Downloads: 49,801

21. Lifestream

Purpose: Displays social feeds and photos on your blog from Facebook, Twitter, and many other services.

Total Downloads: 35,783

22. Page Links To

Purpose: Allows you to redirect a WordPress page or post link to another URL, including those outside of your site.

Total Downloads: 39,122

23. AJAXed WordPress

Purpose: Improves the user experience of WordPress, integrating inline paginated posts, inline comments, threaded comments, and the ability to submit comments with AJAX.

Total Downloads: 88,527

24. WPtouch iPhone Theme

Purpose: Makes your theme and blog compatible with mobile devices, including the popular iPhone and iPod touch platforms. Posts will be converted into AJAX loading articles with effects, and in general makes the experience better for these users. Several new features were introduced in the latest version. Just check out the screenshots for the true potential.

Total Downloads: 93,367

25. WP-DB-Backup

Purpose: Easily create backups with this plugin of your blog, including database tables.

Total Downloads: 239,175

Conclusion

What do you think of the most popular plugins? If using WordPress, do you think that there are better alternatives of the most popular plugins, or do all of these deserve this position – being downloaded the most frequently?

If you want to see more in-depth reviews and features of any plugin, please let me know, or share your favorite/most useful plugins in the comments are below.