Plugin Panic!
There's been a bit of a panic over dropping site health due to plugins recently. I've been doing a little research on this and figured I would share what I've learned.
According to several articles I've read, it is not the number of plugins but the quality of the plugins that matters most. Properly coded plugins should have almost no affect on your site speed if any at all.
Certain plugins like Jetpack rely on separate hosting and is the equivalent of 37 plugins in 1! Plugins like this seem to be exception, not the rule. The reason many people will suggest using as few plugins as possible to new webmasters is to avoid redundancy.
For example, I know some people use both Yoast AND All in One SEO plugins simultaneously. Why people would use 2, I have no idea. People also tend to go crazy with social media plugins.
Here are a couple of site's that were referred to in one article I read.
PippinsPlugins.com . This site uses 81 plugins!
EasyDigitalDownloads.com . This uses 83 plugins!
Why they would use that many plugins is a mystery to me, but if you click those links, you will see those sites load very quickly.
If I am wrong about my assumption that properly coded plugins are fine no matter how many you use, I hope someone will call me out on it since I think it'll benefit many people here.
Recent Comments
72
That is very helpful! I posted a blog not too long ago worrying about plugins and how my site health plunged because I apparently had too many plugins. I've reduced to 5 for the time being, but there are some I want to add. I always thought it should be no more than 9 or 10, but things change all the time. Like you said though, it is the quality of the plugins that matter.
I've also read many comments on other people's sites and it's not uncommon for people to use 40 - 50 plugins with no problems.
That is pretty amazing to have that many plugins! Even more amazing that they have no problems with the speed of their site, but once again it comes back to the quality of plugins like you said. Definitely good to know :)
THIS is why I joined WA!!! Great Info. I have many sites but only a few in WA... I plan on using Aweber in my next site but NOT through a plugin unless there is something I do not know. So I have to check it out.
Interesting post and comments.I'm not ready for them yet, but I am planning on adding aWeber plugin and a Forum plugin. Been kind of concerned because I have six plugins now. All the training says to keep it to a max of 5 plugins. I really don't understand how that is possible. From what you folks are saying, it may not be an issue.
This is quite helpful. My site loads slowly and a Google speed check recommended that I minify my CSS files to prevent long rendering.
I have a theme that has too many elements and scripts. I am not sure why it loads slowly.
So how does one check to see if a plugin is correctly coded?
Tich
That is a great question Tich. It's one that I have asked myself and I didn't address it because I am completely ignorant on that subject. I believe that's another reason why fewer plugins are suggested to new webmasters. It's a "What you don't know can hurt you" kind of thing.
Hi - I would just look at how many stars, and how many installs/reviews it has, and when was the last time it was updated.
I was going to install the FB Sociable plugin - but then saw there were a LOT of 1 star reviews on it - looking into it, there were a number of issues with it, that I just am not concerned about trying to deal with.
The thing with plugins is, there are sooooo many that there are likely 10's if not 100's that do exactly the same thing - but coded by different people.
If a plugin has over 100 reviews, and they are mostly 4/5 star (and it has been updated within the last 3 months), then I would tend to trust it - you should set your own acceptable minimum scores, but those are mine.
With regards to the Site Health - it's just an indication - if I know my site loads relatively fast, then I'm more concerned when it reports I've not been adding enough content.
I still check Google Webmaster Tools to see what is says about speed, crawl errors etc.
I hope that helps,
Mark
Good point Mark. Do your homework! If a plugin has not been updated in 2 years, that should be a red flag.
Very interesting, goo to know. I would suggest using PP3 plugin to check the speed, when you check you can deactivate it and let it stay there. In this way one always knows how much time plugins take. I am using 13 and the speed is 0.79 s, i.e., 41 percent of page load time.
I'm having problems with my site speed, and sitemap. I've been spending hours trying to figure this out. I'm looking into yoast, but irk it's more stuff I gotta learn. No I will not have both plugins running at the same time. Lol. :))
Thanks Steve for the info. Even though I am not an expert about plugins, but I always felt the panic sometimes some people have is blown out of proportion. I don't like to many plugins myself but had installed a plugin today to protect my content. I think this is a useful one, others still may think differently.
Sylvia
As long as it doesn't create redundant and conflicting codes, it should be fine. At least, that is my understanding so far.
I just spent two days trying to resolve a problem occurring on both of my websites. Basically, out of the blue, I could not post a blog to Google+ with the main photo. Instead, the blank "shape" was repeatedly popping up. After corresponding with support and several other people, I discovered today it was the plug ins! Two different social media plug ins causing this issue. Why they both suddenly failed........I have no clue but, something was changed. I support the belief that it's not necessarily the number but the proper code as you've stated.
I am back (corrected my typos-geeze!)--I just wanted to add that these plug ins are not magically created...the human factor plays a big part. I would urge everyone to take the time to really read the descriptions, who is the creator, etc. There is so much competition in this field. It's amazing the amount of information there is to learn about all of this. One of my sons works in the "fix my website/find the screw up field"--Now I understand why he works 70+ hours a week.
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Hi Steve,
Great post, I made a comment yesterday expressing a similar thing Which plugins do I have to deactivate or remove? It's not so much the number of plugins but the type of plugins you should be aware of.
You can waste a lot of time in this area, but something that I do from time to time is test my sites and inner pages on sites like:
http://tools.pingdom.com/
http://www.webpagetest.org/
I know Google has it's own tool, but these two sites will break everything down, showing how every single file is loading/responding.
Will also let you know how well the server is responding.
Thanks for the resources Craig.