A Random Walk Through Wordpress Plugins
July 29th, 2008If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!
Wordpress plugins don’t stop coming. My initial idea with this blog was to build a set of plugins and then once I thought I was set, download the plugin folder and use it for my other blogs. But, like I said, the cool plugins keep on coming.
So today I took a random walk though the Wordpress plugin repository just to see what’s up. No search terms. Just some browsing. And here are some cool plugins I found.
A complex ad serving and content plugin. It supports ad-rotation, scheduling, and works with widgets.
A plugin that will automatically insert things in your Wordpress blog. That’s the best quick explanation because this plugin does a lot like executing PHP or inserting data from the database. And it will insert these just about anywhere on your blog.
Twitterdoodle
You can get a lot of news before anyone else by following the right people in Twitter or you can use Twitter search to find what people are saying about a topic in real time. Twitterdoodle will automatically add a Twitter search feed as a post at specific intervals of your choosing.
Sensitive Tag Cloud
This plugin presents a context sensitive tag cloud.
Please Link to Me
This plugin gives your visitors the code to link back to your post, right below your article.
Better Nearby Posts Links
"Previous" and "Next" are not good anchor text. Link to your nearby posts with their title. I have been thinking about a "You are here" plugin, that put’s the current post in context with a certain amount of surrounding posts, like the three posts before and the three posts after. Haven’t got around to messing with the concept yet though.
Do unto others. This plugin detects nofollow tags on a commenter’s website and doesn’t give them a dofollow link if they have a nofollow blog.
If you publish the same type of post over and over, this is the plugin for you. With it, you can create templates for your regular postings and stop the copy and paste.
FreshTags
When a user comes to your blog from another blog or a search engine, this plugin will attempt to detect his or her interests and present posts related to the search terms used.
eShop
A Wordpress ecommerce plugin that supports downloadable products.
This plugin automatically links keywords and phrases in your post with posts, pages, categories and tags on your blog. The plugin finds the link matches by itself and then you edit them.
That’s about it. Not sure which I may install, but each one is interesting and has potential.
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Hi Stephen. Nice post… another option for online shopping and e-Commerce is the WordPress e-Commerce plugin made by us in 2005. We monitor the WordPress e-Commerce space and I’d say we still have the most feature rich and industrial strength WordPress solution available. Another option for people if they dont want to use a plugin is our e-Commerce site builder, and there is a nice theme called MarketPlace theme made by somebody else. Download WP e-Commerce if you like:
This is one big list of rare plugins. Most of it I have never heard before. I like the plugin “Nofollow Rep”. Why should we dofollow on those blogs that nofollow our comments right?
Atniz’s last blog post..Wordless Wednesday
@Dan
My blog does this sometimes. Haven’t figured out why, but sometimes comments are invisible. Strange. Here is the link you posted to another WordPress e-Commerce plugin. I have been looking for one of these that will create it’s own directory structure based on the details in it’s own product table, rather than using the Wordpress post and page system. That way, for frequent product changes, I don’t have to delete and create posts with daily updates. I haven’t found that one yet.
@Atniz,
That’s why I do the browsing thing. Sometimes what you are looking for hides the things you need.
Cool!
Xavier Lur, the World’s Youngest Professional Blogger
http://www.KidTechGuru.blogspot.com
Thanks for the post. I’ve been looking for a specific plug-in but can’t seem to find it. Do you (or any of your readers) know if there is a plug in that shows what tags you use when you’re writing a post? What I mean is when I’m writing a post it shows me all my categories and I can choose which ones I want that post to be filed under. Is there a plug-in that does the same thing with tags? Thanks.
Joanne’s last blog post..Urge Senate To Reauthorize Adoption Incentive Program
I would use Simple Tags. It has a lot of features. Finding tags related to the post you are currently writing is one. You just click a button and it gives you tags to choose from.
Thank you. I just installed it and it was just what I was looking for.
Joanne’s last blog post..Sesame Street and Kimmy Shop
Glad I could help you!
WordPress is the best
Now I still wonder why those Google Bloggers are still sticking with their Blogger system 
They don’t have any idea. My first site was on Netfirms before there were blogs. That was my last free site.
wow that’s alot of plugins for wordpress! Too bad there’s not many available for blogger, I’m thinking of switching to a private domain with wordpress soon.
mantiz’s last blog post..25 Perfectly Normal Ways to Kill Time on the Internet
It definitely pays to host your own. There may be a few more hassles, but you make it with the ability to totally customize your blog and make it your own.
Thanks for the list Stephan! I was just wondering about templates in Wordpress and you answered the question for me before I even started researching it.
Also, you redesigned, right? I really like it!
Well, it’s a free theme, but I like it better. Was tired of the one I had on here, even though I did design that one.
To go with my Twitterdoodle plugin you mention above, I now offer the RSSdoodle plugin the works in much the same way - pulling keyword based mashups of RSS feeds instead of twitter tweets.
If you don’t mind, here is a link to more information: http://www.lessnau.com/2009/01/wordpress-rss-plug-inrssdoodle/