A few months ago I wrote a post about the Best Posts WordPress Plugin that went nuts on my blog, I didn’t write the post to stop others from using the WordPress plugin, it was written to give an example of what can happen when a plugin goes crazy. Every blogger is different and every business blog requires different plugins to create the look and experience that they might be looking for. I personally have some crazy obsession with WordPress Plugins that I can’t seem to beat, every once and a while I will write about my different experiences with plugins to help new bloggers with understanding some of the plugins out there.
When it comes to WordPress plugins I always suggest that you ask yourself if you really NEED the plugin (not want) that your considering, I see so many blogs with crazy plugins that no one in their right mind is clicking or using. That’s just silly and it adds to page load times in way too many instances.
One big thing every blogger should consider before installing a plugin is the future….. Pull out the magic 8 ball. A lot of WordPress plugins might make completing certain tasks very easy for now but in the long term if the plugin is no longer supported or that phase goes away you might find yourself with a tremendous work load to go back and fix previous posts.
1 Good Reason to Choose Your WordPress Plugins Wisely
When I first changed my blog from a basic html website to a WordPress blog I wanted a plugin that would make it easy for me to insert You Tube video code, yes the lazy man’s route. Who the hell wants to copy and paste html anyway? Certainly not me.
My boy Lace did a little research and installed the Vipers Video Quick Tags WordPress Plugin, pretty sweet plugin that makes inserting You Tube videos, Vimeo and all other kinds of videos directly into your post without copying the embed video code (html). Everything went smooth for the first year, my love for Vipers Video Quick tags was deeeeeep. Then one sad day WordPress had one of those crazy updates (pretty constant), once we did the update Vipers Video Quick tags retired and never worked again on this blog.
In many cases it’s really not a big deal when a plugin needs to be uninstalled or no longer becomes useful, in the case of Vipers Video Quick tags it leaves me with a tremendous workload because I have 100′s of posts on this blog with You Tube videos that we inserted using the plugin. Here’s what those posts look like now.
As you can see the video that should be embeded there is no longer embeded, and in this case it’s worse because it partially links the You Tube video link then breaks it because it includes the You Tube short code as part of the hyperlink. Now mind you this was hardly the most exiting post I have ever written here or the most thrilling You Tube video ever filmed, but that’s not the point. Going back and fixing broken crap on your blog sucks, choose your WordPress plugins wisely.
Here’s the dumb video btw. haha
If your feeling a little crazy consider becoming a fan of my Facebook Fan Page or connect with me on that thing they call twitter, my username is @extremejohn.
Cole Stan (2)
KyAus @ Those.Tips (2)
SafariDave (2)
{ 38 comments… read them below or add one }
I have a strong dislike for that viper’s plugin tag.
My recent issue was with Nextgen gallery. It make great looking galleries on my post, but for some reason it didn’t get along with Comment Luv. Even after deactivating the plugin, it won’t let me use Comment Luv on blogs. I know there’s a fix for it, but that’s time that I don’t have for a plugin that I really didn’t need in the first place.
These plugins are very useful but blog can become screwed if we use so many of them
I’m sort of in the middle when it comes to wordpress plugins. I have a lot actually but I’m always looking at what ones I can remove.
I think the comment luv needs to get some updates. Right now if you were to remove your comment luv all your random links would have to be manually removed from all comments. So if you ever want to sell a blog I would suggest against using that plugin.
Besides that I really don’t have any issues with using many plugins.
bbrian017´s last blog ..Why everyone goes blogging?
This is one of the reasons why I always use YouTube, Hulu and other site embed code and don’t try to cheat with a plug-in, plug-ins lose support and eventually this could leave to lots of dead code.
I did used to use a very similar “EASY” video embedder and had a similar problem back in 2008.
Just an FYI, my blog has memory leaks and my hosting provider is blaming the All in One SEO Pack plug-in among many other PHP plug-ins. PHP can suck lots of memory, and you can get into issues with your web hosting if you use a bunch of wordpress plug-ins too.
Dragon Blogger´s last blog ..Apple iPad Releases in March
I think it’s important to figure out where you want your blog to go and then research what plugins will help you get there.
I have very few installed on my blog and am always looking at what benefit they provide my readers and whether I should get rid of any or not.
What do you think?
Eric´s last blog ..Lets Help Each Other
Not to mention, its always a pain in the a$$ if the plugin doesn’t function properly and interferes with your admin dashboard. More than once, I’ve had to manually deactivate all of my plugins from my database, then reactivate them one-at-a-time, to remove non-functioning plugins. The first time this happened to me, I almost had a heart attack!
Will@laser hair removal´s last blog ..Is Laser Hair Removal Too Expensive? The Lowdown on the Price of Laser Hair Removal
I have a blog that is pretty much YouTube videos with comments about the video and what is best about the content. I use Windows Livewriter and it does the embed for me. I don’t think it will ever change cause it’s a standard embed html tag.
Steve´s last blog ..Pay For College With Tax Credits
yes, i totally agree with you.. i had to go through same situation long back ago and i always try not to use too many plugins and if i need it i will do some googling to get more details.
Thanks
Kevin S @Free Vector Graphics´s last blog ..Verify your Paypal account by linking it to your Bank account
I got myself in a spot of trouble with that Tweetmeme thing, don’t know what happened but had to get rid of it. Too many plug-ins will junk up your blog and like you say few people will ever use them. I always keep usability in the forefront when thinking about adding plug ins – would I use it?
Dick´s last blog ..The Evolution Of The Company Web Site
@Dick,
Tweetmeme is on its way out of my blog as well. Quite a page load culprit…
@Lars Tong Strömberg@marketing, yeah there’s another plugin I am getting ready to try out. Probably move on from tweetmeme at some point.
@Dick, exactly and that’s a great way of looking at it and of course…. would anyone use it? haha
Yeah that sucks. Did you say 100 YouTube links on that plug in? So did you manually inserted all of them again?
MichaelR´s last blog ..OneSuite Toll-Free Fax Line Starting at 4.4¢ Per Page
@MichaelR, I haven’t yet.
Plugins also slow down the performance of your site along with the backdoors that allow hackers into your server.
Denny @ industrial curtains´s last blog ..Factory Partitions
@Denny @ industrial curtains, very true.
The problem is that there are so many plugins out there these days and everyone seems to want a plugin that can speed up the blogging process, but at the end of the day when a plugin goes belly up you end up with funny looking code in your posts, then you spend ages trying to remove/update them all.
Often than not it’s always when Wordpress upgrades!
Karen @ Blazing Minds´s last blog ..Win Some Amazing Prizes in the Blazing Minds Competition
@Karen @ Blazing Minds, so very right Karen.
I get so confused, but now i prefer using scripts wherever necessary instead of plugins.
I use only the essential plugins
gautam hans´s last blog ..5 reasons why bloggers quit blogging
@gautam hans, scripts are way out of my league. Some day, maybe some day.
I’d also give the same advice when it comes to themes… I mean if you think fixing video link sucks, try changing themes and then re-doing ALL the custom fields for ratings (if you review… which i do – supplements) and pictures and all that other stuff.
It’s a b**ch and a half. Good post, serves as a reminder.
FJ – No BS Fitness´s last blog ..Just Change Already…
@FJ – No BS Fitness, I never really went crazy with themes. I imagine they could really get hairy, you should write a guest post about an issue with themes that might help others
I have to agree, I have tons of plugins, I turned most them off and I saw increase in speed on my site. Over the next few days, I will be turning off and removing plugins I do not need.
element321´s last blog ..Blogging Tips – Starting a New Blog
@element321, it’s just about time for me to do some plugin maintenance. I have been using my time pretty wisely lately so who knows that might even happen tonight.Connections
Personally, I’d love to see plugins that clean up after themselves when you remove them.
I have the Wordpress Clean Options Plugin that shows you (and allows you to remove) all of the ‘crap’ that a plugin leaves behind; and WP themes for that matter.
Karl
Karl Foxley´s last blog ..Guest Blogging For Fresh Content And Optimised Backlinks
@Karl Foxley, the day will come, not yet but it will come. I like keeping my servers clean and plugin remains don’t fit that bill.
i am in love with plug-ins too,they make life easy for a blogger.but it is very important to be careful with with it too.i just heard of the hacking of techcrunch.com and the story is that it was from the vulnerability of one a plug-in.plug-ins are cool but one must also be careful when selecting and using them.
mk akan´s last blog ..8 Things Blogging Can Do For You Apart From Making Money
@mk akan, so very true. Thank you for taking the time to comment.
John,
About Viper, have you checked and tried any search and replace plugins to fix it?
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/search-and-replace/
@Lars Tong Strömberg@marketing, no I haven’t heard of that before. Thank you, I added it to my list of things to check out today. I appreciate you taking the time to leave a comment and the link.
Good advice. I have recently been having issues with my blog too. It was my tweet me plugin that was causing the headache.
Had a similar problem with a permalink redirect plug-in. It didn’t occur to me to read the installation manual carefully
and once I installed it the damage was done. Page navigation threw up plenty of 404 errors and deactivating the plug-in even made most of my posts disappear. Support for the plug-in had been closed for ages and now I was left with no choice than to live with the 404 errors.
Fortunately another permalink redirect plug-in came along and fixed this problem nicely. Hopefully the plug-in will stay updated for a very long time, if it doesn’t I’ll probably have to stop updating wordpress ;(.
Udegbunam Chukwudi@Make Money Online´s last blog ..Google Analytics Asynchronous Tracking Code Rocks!
@Udegbunam Chukwudi@Make Money Online, it sounds like you got pretty lucky. That’s the thing about plugins, you never really know what the outcome might be. It’s like gambling
Wow that sucks. How would you even find the posts that need to be fixed? I never considered the extra workload that might come if a plugin doesn’t work. I’ve tried to keep plugins to a minimum just to help load time.
Ned Carey´s last blog ..2010 Baltimore City Tax Sale Announced
Hi John,
The main problem with some of the plugins is that they load even though they are not needed.
In the past I used to install quite a few plugins, but eventually I saw that it slows down my blog.
I totally agree that you should install only what is really necessary and try to replace plugins with user functions.
I wrote a post about how too many plugins effect your blog, which plugins are essential and which are redundant.
Thanks
Omer Greenwald´s last blog ..My First 45 Days of Blogging
I dont have any problem with those plugins, but some web designer should take care of it when they are going to choose web template.
John, I wouldn’t anyway think of embedding youtube video directly. I had almost similar problem just like you had. Mainly because some videos deleted either by youtube or by users who uploaded it. If i really want to embed them, i should selfhost them rather than linking such hosting sites.
Plug-ins can definitely be tricky. Thank you for posting this.
{ 4 trackbacks }