Must-have WordPress plugins

For all the WordPress sites I maintain, I always install the following plugins:

  • BackWPup: To make full backups of my WordPress sites, and upload them to my Dropbox account. It supports a lot of other backup destinations as well. The free version is excellent, but if you like it, buy the pro version.
    My typical settings are:
    General: Archive Format: zip
    Schedule: Start job with: WordPress Cron
    Schedule: Scheduler: Type: Weekly (at eg. 02:35 in the morning – never set it to the top of the hour, because other people probably backup at that time)
    To Dropbox: File deletion: 1 (because Dropbox then keeps the past month’s backups anyways)
  • Avoid Google’s Cache: Because I don’t like that Google and Internet Archive make copies of my content.
    I wrote it because a politician regretted something he wrote on his WordPress site.
  • WP Updates Notifier: Sends you an email every time WordPress, a plugin or a theme has an update.
  • Open external links in a new window: Once a user clicks on an external link, a new tab is opened, instead of opening the link in the current tab. This is to keep visitors on the current website. It is pure JavaScript, and doesn’t affect SEO.

Let me know if you have plugins that I should add to this list.

11 thoughts on “Must-have WordPress plugins

  1. Hey,

    Just noticed the article – great stuff even “though” it’s from 2015.
    We were just discussing this matter on a meeting the other day and we all agreed on the following plugins is a “must have” besides DropBox and Google Analytics.

    – W3 Total Cache
    For optimizing page speed

    and

    – Yoast SEO
    For getting all important SEO fields

    But great article – are you planning another one for 2016?
    /// Andreas

  2. I manage five website and this plugin works fine in four of them but on the other it opens the external links in a new window but also changes my website to the link that is being opened. Any idea how to stop this?

  3. Dear Kristian,
    the plugin “external link” doesn´t work on the main woocommerce-button in the product-page (the button that appears instead of the “add to cart”-button, when a product is a “external/affiliate product”

    Cache is emptied a thousand times…it doesn´t work. The link of the external product opens in the same window, as the shop is.
    Can you help please?

    It isn`t online yet, just on localhost.
    Thank you, nice greetings Sandra

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