Tip 102: how to check your plugins

byFleeky

7.6K followers

Updated 5 years ago

How to check your plugins

It is not only important to choose a good working plugin. You also have to check it and see if it works properly to avoid short circuits. Yuk.

To do so you have several criteria

• What does the plugin do (research) ?
• Has it a good rate (the appraisal and feedback of users. One star is not enough!) ?
• Has it been updated lately (one year ago sounds suspicious) ?
• Is it compatible with the latest wordpress version (do not go for wacky) ?

Let us take an example

In your Wordpress dashboard click plugins> add new.

Add a keyword for your search. In this case link checker. A whole list of plugins shows up. In my example I just keep the two top results. It looks like this:

What can we deduce?

• Both plugins check for bad links.
• Both plugins are rated with four stars.
• The plugin on the left has only 10,000+ active installations and seems more recent than the plugin on the right. The plugin on the right seems older with 600,000+ active installations. However...
• The plugin on the left has been updated 4 weeks ago, the plugin on the right 1 year ago
• The plugin on the left is compatible with my wordpress version, the plugin on the right is not

Based on this, my choice goes to the plugin on the left. But in this case, I will test both.

What did testing reveal?

The plugin on the right did not work properly. Whereas the plugin on the left was OK. Simple in use and easy to understand.

Conclusion

If you apply those simple criteria, you will save a lot of time and errors.

Thank you for comments, likes and shares

Other methods ? Besides trial and error?