4 Most Essential WordPress Plugins Ever

There are thousands of WordPress plugins, then there are these 50 best wordpress plugins, but some wordpress plugins are most essential to run a successful blog. Though I use many wordpress plugins and widgets on this blog, if I was told to run my blog with the least possible and most essential wordpress plugins, these are my personal picks -

WordPress Plugins I cannot blog without…

Akismet - is a powerful comment spam blocking tool that checks every new comment, trackback, or pingback that is posted to your blog, submits it to Akismet web service which runs hundreds of tests on the comment and intelligently determines if it is spam and flags it. We get thousands of automated spam comments everyday, and without Akismet, I would be spending my entire day simply deleting spam and fishing out the few valid comments. It grants you a new blogging life…

WP Super Cache – is a very fast caching module for WordPress. It generates html files that are served directly without processing heavy PHP scripts, which helps to speed up your WordPress blog significantly. It reduces the server load substantially and will help your site stay online and prevent server crashes on shared hosting services when Digg hits your site. It will also help you survive on a cheaper hosting package.

WordPress Database Backup - creates backups of your core WordPress tables as well as other tables of your choice in the same database. You can get on-demand or automated wordpress database backups, and save it to your server, computer or email. Its fast, efficient and will save years of your blogging time should your server crash or your blog is hacked. A simple mistake in the command line can cause years of hard work to go away in front of your eyes…

Google XML Sitemaps Generator – This plugin will generate a sitemaps.org compatible sitemap of your WordPress blog which is supported by Ask.com, Google, MSN Search and YAHOO. A sitemap essentialy lets search engines understand your site structure and is helpful to get all your pages indexed successfully, which will eventually get Google to your door. This plugin will generate an error-free and compatible sitemaps in seconds, will refresh with each new article and ping the big search engines in a spam-free manner.

If I got a limited choice, these are the most essential plugins I will install. I also recommend these as the first wordpress plugins for any blogger to get started with.

There are a lot of favorite wordpress plugins out there, but you can live without most of them. What are the most essential plugins you cannot blog without? If you can add to this list – name *one* in comments.

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