Wordpress Essential Wordpress Plugins?

unrealindeed

Administrator
Staff member
My top 6 (I'm sure there are others)

1. Wordfence
2. WP Supercache
3. Disable XML-RPC Pingback
4. Yoast SEO
5. Contact Form 7
6. Really Simple CAPTCHA

Anything after that really depends on the website and it's requirements.

I don't use plugins for backups/restores because they can be tricky to configure, end up backing up my backups and wasting disk space. My preference would be to use a reliable solution from the hosting provider.
 

jmcc

Active Member
I wish people would keep the plugins up to date. Most of the compromised websites I see in web usage surveys are Wordpress installations that have been compromised via an unmaintained plugin. (The other big problem is from Joomla installations.)

Regards...jmcc
 

mneylon

Administrator
Staff member
I wish people would keep the plugins up to date. Most of the compromised websites I see in web usage surveys are Wordpress installations that have been compromised via an unmaintained plugin. (The other big problem is from Joomla installations.)

Regards...jmcc
You're preaching to the choir!! :)
Out of date plugins OR out of date / compromised themes ..
 

unrealindeed

Administrator
Staff member
I wish people would keep the plugins up to date. Most of the compromised websites I see in web usage surveys are Wordpress installations that have been compromised via an unmaintained plugin. (The other big problem is from Joomla installations.)

Regards...jmcc
Using a management tool like MainWP is great way to keep WordPress core files, plugins and themes updated from one central location.
As for Joomla, it's update service has improved since version 3.x. It is still a heavy system with decreasing popularity, as is Drupal for that matter (in my opinion).
 

jmcc

Active Member
Using a management tool like MainWP is great way to keep WordPress core files, plugins and themes updated from one central location.
As for Joomla, it's update service has improved since version 3.x. It is still a heavy system with decreasing popularity, as is Drupal for that matter (in my opinion).
The main problem is that people use Wordpress now like they used to use Dreamweaver a few years ago. It is a production tool for web devs and with customers treating their site like print brochureware, they rarely bother to get any ongoing maintenance contract for the site. There is a lot of Joomla 1.5 sites out there and many of them have been continually compromised for years. These compromises, Wordpress and Joomla, are different from the old defacement compromises in that they are link injections. The links and text are placed offscreen by CSS so that a human visitor does not see them but a search engine does.

Regards...jmcc
 

unrealindeed

Administrator
Staff member
The main problem is that people use Wordpress now like they used to use Dreamweaver a few years ago. It is a production tool for web devs and with customers treating their site like print brochureware, they rarely bother to get any ongoing maintenance contract for the site. There is a lot of Joomla 1.5 sites out there and many of them have been continually compromised for years. These compromises, Wordpress and Joomla, are different from the old defacement compromises in that they are link injections. The links and text are placed offscreen by CSS so that a human visitor does not see them but a search engine does.

Regards...jmcc
Yes I agree, and I think the solution is to sell maintenance as part of the contract. Websites are no longer one off builds.
 
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