Plugins

bydavehayes

3.2K followers

6 years ago

This post is about Plugins!

In recent weeks, there has been a number of questions asked about How many plugins is the right number, this is obviously based on the training we receive, which suggests that the recommended number of plugins to have is less than 5

There have been some interesting answers in reply to these questions

So for what it is worth, this is my experience of using plugins over the last 8 years and the criteria I use in choosing a plugin

This criteria was born out of an experience, I had with a particular theme and 3 hosts

Are you sitting comfortably? ; )

Then I’ll begin

I first started off with Bluehost as my WordPress Host, I am no longer using them, for reasons which will be documented fully on my blog. I used them initially as they were ‘allegedly’ the best WP host

I took hosting from them, choose a theme and set up a lovely looking blog, which was similar in style to Facebooks appearance

To this I added, first one plugin, then another, then another until I had a LOT,well over 20

I saw one I liked, I installed it

Once day, I went to log into my blog and all I saw were lines of code… Nothing else, just lots and lots of code

Bluehost support were contacted and they were really less than helpful, I mean LESS than helpful, telling me at one point to manually look up each line of code to see where i had gone wrong. I knew at that time about a postage stamp of knowledge about coding

In the end, after a lot of frustration, it turned out that I had actually installed a dodgy plugin on my site, I knew even less then about what was a good plugin, but thanks to a kindly supervisor, and a lot of work on both his and my part, the blog got restored to its normal appearance

But from that point on, I have taken the installation of plugins very seriously and wisely. I no longer have 20 plus installed : ) I have over 5 and am not bothered about it, because from researching some of the top blog sites online and some others I choose to follow for work reasons, they ALL have more than 5, they also use the same Criteria I use for choosing them

That criteria is this

Its the CRUDS one

Now don’t panic if you have never heard of it, its the nickname I give to my criteria ; )

It stands for

Compatible: is the plugin compatible for my version of wordpress (The one that caused my blog to crash, wasn’t)

How do you tell if its compatible with your blog?... because underneath the plugin logo, it will state if it is or not

Relevant:is it relevant to my blog and the work that needs to be done and what are the reviews like

Updated: When was it last updated?... Plugins are software and no sooner are they published they can be out dated, so updates are crucial

Downloads: How many times has it been downloaded, this is a good indication as to whether its a good one or not

Support: What is the support like for the plugin, this is usually indicated in the reviews. Personally I don’t touch or install a plugin, even if its a recommendation, if it doesn’t meet this criteria

Now, at this point, I should add that this is my guide and criteria that I use for plugins, it is not a definitive guide as to the plugins you have on your site, which may work perfectly well, but since using this strategy I have never had any problems on my sites

Incidentally, the site I referred to earlier, this is not hosted here at WA, but on another host,which is now that themes 4th Host and with each host, that particular theme always has issues and problems, which again I will be fully documenting on my blog

In terms of the number of plugins I have on my site now, I have the 2 pre~installed ones and 5 additional ones which meet the criteria above

Hope this post helps you

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