How to Choose the BEST WordPress Plugins

WordPress plugins make managing your WordPress website (or blog) easier.

But be careful how quickly you are to add a plugin to your site.

The wrong plugin can:

• Crash your WordPress site
• Interfere with your administrative login
• Conflict with other plugins creating all kinds of trouble
• Allow hackers to hijack your website
• Create performance problems (i.e. slow loading pages)

So how do you choose a plugin that doesn’t create all these problems?

The answer is: DO YOUR HOMEWORK.

Does the plugin have:

• A large number of downloads by others
• Very good reviews from *more* than one or two people
• Is it actively being updated (i.e. the last update wasn’t TWO years ago!)
• Does it work with your current version of WordPress (which should always be the most recent version of WordPress)

Here is what I’m talking about (below) and the information you should see when you are looking for plugins at the WordPress plugin repository (https://wordpress.org/plugins/).

I use this plugin when a client doesn’t want to deal with comments at their site/blog. It *globally* turns OFF all commenting. People visiting your website, as well as spammers, can’t even leave a comment – it’s not an option.

This plugin (below) has been downloaded over 1 million times. It has 123 reviews and it was last updated, 10/26/2014 (today is 11/5/2014).

The 5 one star reviews don’t bother me. You can’t make everyone happy and most people who have problems with a GOOD PLUGIN don’t know what they’re doing to start with.