We all want to speed up our blogs and one of the easiest ways to do that is by removing WordPress Plugins that impact load speed, and provide little value for our readers. Personally I have nothing against any of these plugins or their developers.
Give These 5 WordPress Plugins the Boot!
Akismet – this spam detection plugin developed by the creators of WordPress is old skool. If you're not using GASP – the GrowMap Anti-Spambot Plugin then you should follow the lead of hundreds of forward thinking WordPress bloggers who are. Akismet users often find their friends and close collaborators comments buried somewhere in the spam folder waiting to be rescued. In some cases, Akismet will automatically delete our friends comments and we never see them!
Zemanta – I am surprised to see that over 80,000 people have downloaded the Zemanta plugin, but it's not necessary to have this plugin installed on your blog. Zemanta is a neat little piece of software that is used as a discovery tool and it will do an exceptional job of enhancing an otherwise boring blog post. Don't get me wrong I'm a fan of Zemanta, and I even recorded a video tutorial to demonstrate how it works! But Zemanta is available as an extension for Chrome that performs the exact same job as the plugin. Zemanta is also available for Firefox and just about any browser you can imagine, not to mention the fact that Zemanta works with email too. It's a great program, but this is another one of those popular WordPress Plugins you can remove from your dashboard right now! Download the browser extension here.
WP Greet Box plugin – this plugin will add a message at the top of your post similar to the following:
Chances are, if your reader found your post on StumbleUpon, they certainly don't need to be reminded to give you a thumbs up and chances are very slim that they will end up subscribing to your blog based on seeing this greet box. If you don't believe me, remove the plugin for one week just to see if your subscription rate goes down. Or, try to remember the last time you subscribed to someone's blog based on seeing this Greet Box.
Sexy Bookmarks – I took a poll on Facebook asking my blogging friends to tell me which one of their WordPress plugins they recently deactivated and by far Sexy Bookmarks was the top voted response. I visited a few of these blogs and found that most of them are using Digg Digg which floats alongside your post and serves as a constant reminder to your readers of how easy it is to share your content on multiple social networks.
I don't use Sharebar here on Basic Blog Tips because I use Genesis with Appendipity, with sharing options and so many cool features built into the theme that I was able to eliminate a long list of WordPress plugins.
My Least Favorite of All WordPress Plugins
Facebook Comments – Facebook comments on your WordPress blog – really? If your a Facebook fan or if you're trying to attract them, I'm sure you have a Like or Share button on your post. But the concept of having Facebook comments on your blog – instead of keeping them over on your Facebook page where they belong, boggles my mind. Ok I give in, maybe it's just me because I'm not really into Facebook like I'm into Twitter. So here is my last little bit of arm-twisting.
Did you ever notice that it takes FOR EVER for the Facebook comments plugin to load. The more comments you have the longer it takes. When you think about it, that only makes sense, considering all of the hoops your blog has to jump through in order to go back and forth with Facebook fetching the data.
Just login to your dashboard and deactivate AND delete these unnecessary WordPress Plugins!
What other WordPress Plugins can we ditch?
[shadowbox]BONUS PODCAST: Listen as I share my thoughts on how to “Optimize Your Blog: A WordPress Plugin Wish List“[/shadowbox]
