As a WordPress user, the proverbial Pokemon cards of this particular trade are Plugins. Once you have a few, you need to find more, better, cooler ones and bulk up your website to raise its stats and level up to make the other sites faint in your presence. Plugins are the meat to your potatoes. The corner pieces of your puzzle. The prosthetic limbs that help your WordPress page win the race while everyone else is dragging behind. You can browse for new limbs in the Plugins directory, or you can join me here and become informed of the most popular and highest rated Plugins since 2012.

I compiled TOP PLUGINS OF 2012 after reading through Lorelle’s article, “What Are The Essential Plugins You Can’t Live Without?” written in April of 2012. There are quite a few links to “top integer amount favorite and essential plugin” articles. To see the full list of plugins mentioned in all of the articles combined, see them at “Honorable Mention Plugins from 2012” (link no longer available).

However, Thas was back in April of 2012. Knowing the nature of the internet, a lot has changed since then. I even had to weed out the plugins that did not exist anymore or have not been updated in over 2 years. So I’d like to do a quick comparison of the former list, and the current most popular Plugins in the Plugin Directory.

The TOP PLUGINS OF 2013 list is based on a huge compilation of Highest rated and most popular plugins in the Plugin Directory as of October 2013. The plugins listed are a result of plugins that appeared on BOTH the highest rated AND the most popular. You can see the full listing of both lists at:
Highest rated and most popular plugins of 2013 (link no longer available).

Top Plugins of 2012

Top Plugins of 2013

AKISMET

Akismet checks your comments against the Akismet web service to see if they look like spam or not.

AKISMET

Akismet checks your comments against the Akismet web service to see if they look like spam or not.

ALL IN ONE SEO PACK

All in One SEO Pack is a WordPress SEO plugin to automatically optimize your WordPress blog for Search Engines such as Google.

ALL IN ONE SEO PACK

All in One SEO Pack is a WordPress SEO plugin to automatically optimize your WordPress blog for Search Engines such as Google.

JETPACK

Supercharge your WordPress site with powerful features previously only available to WordPress.com users. Comes with many plugins which were deemed important and useful to have.

JETPACK

Supercharge your WordPress site with powerful features previously only available to WordPress.com users. Comes with many plugins which were deemed important and useful to have.

CONTACT FORM 7

Just another contact form plugin. Simple but flexible.

CONTACT FORM 7

Just another contact form plugin. Simple but flexible.

GOOGLE XML SITEMAPS

This plugin will generate a special XML Sitemap to help search engines better index your blog.

GOOGLE XML SITEMAPS

This plugin will generate a special XML Sitemap to help search engines better index your blog.

W3 TOTAL CACHE

Easy Web Performance Optimization (WPO) using caching: browser, page, object, database, minify and content delivery network support.

W3 TOTAL CACHE

Easy Web Performance Optimization (WPO) using caching: browser, page, object, database, minify and content delivery network support.

WP SUPER CACHE

A very fast caching engine for WordPress that produces static HTML files.

WP SUPER CACHE

A very fast caching engine for WordPress that produces static HTML files.

BACKUPWORDPRESS

Simple automated back ups of your WordPress powered website.

BACKUPWORDPRESS

Simple automated back ups of your WordPress powered website.

DIGG DIGG

With Digg Digg by Buffer, you have an all in one social sharing plugin for your blog. Display all social sharing buttons nicely on your blog and make it look amazing, just like Mashable.

UPDRAFTPLUS

Easy and complete backups plus restoration. Manual or automated backups (backup to S3, Dropbox, Google Drive, Rackspace, FTP, SFTP, email and others).

WORDPRESS SEO BY YOAST

Improve your WordPress SEO: Write better content and have a fully optimized WordPress site using the WordPress SEO plugin by Yoast.

WP-DB-BACKUP

On-demand backup of your WordPress database.

BROKEN LINK CHECKER

This plugin will check your posts, comments and other content for broken links and missing images, and notify you if any are found.

DUPLICATOR

Duplicate, clone, backup, move and transfer an entire site from one location to another.

GOOGLE ANALYTICS FOR WORDPRESS

Track your WordPress site easily and with lots of metadata: views per author and category, automatic tracking of outbound clicks and pageviews.

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WPTOUCH MOBILE PLUGIN

Create a slick mobile WordPress website with just a few clicks.

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YET ANOTHER RELATED POSTS PLUGIN (YARPP)

Display a list of related entries on your site and feeds based on a unique algorithm. Now with thumbnail support built-in!

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Tweet old post

This plugin helps you keep your old posts alive by tweeting about them and driving more traffic to them from twitter. It also helps you to promote your content. You can set time and number of tweets to post to drive more traffic.

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It seems that over time, these are the plugins that have been considered essential. This doesn’t mean that other plugins aren’t great to have, or just fun to include in your site, so I’ve decided to round up my own picks.

I have not tried all of the ones that sparked my interest, and sadly I tried some that did not match my expectations. Hopefully from my comparisons, there have been a few plugins that have sparked your interest enough to look into. I left out the plugins that were mentioned in the top combined plugins of 2012 and 2013. Enjoy!

Isabel’s Picks

UPDRAFTPLUS – WORDPRESS BACKUP AND RESTORATION

Easy and complete backups plus restoration. Manual or automated backups (backup to S3, Dropbox, Google Drive, Rackspace, FTP, SFTP, email + others).

FILE GALLERY

File Gallery extends WordPress media (attachments) capabilities by adding a new gallery shortcode handler with templating support (and much more).

TWEET OLD POST

This plugin helps you to keep your old posts alive by tweeting about them and driving more traffic to them from twitter. It also helps you to promote your content. You can set time and number of tweets to post to drive more traffic.

WP EDITORIAL CALENDAR

The Editorial Calendar makes it possible to see all your posts and drag and drop them to manage your blog.

WIDGET CONTEXT

Show or hide widgets on specific posts, pages or sections of your site.

SITE LAYOUT CUSTOMIZER

Customize the front page and other pages. Display your posts with different layouts.

WPTOUCH MOBILE PLUGIN

Create a slick mobile WordPress website with just a few clicks.

BROKEN LINK CHECKER

This plugin will check your posts, comments and other content for broken links and missing images, and notify you if any are found.

SOCIAL MEDIA WIDGET

Adds links to all of your social media and sharing site profiles. Tons of icons come in 3 sizes, 4 icon styles, and 4 animations.

SHAREBAR

Sharebar adds a dynamic and fully customizable vertical box to the left of a blog post that contains links/buttons to popular social networking sites.

SOCIAL ANALYTICS

Plugin for monitoring which social networks your visitors are logged into with Google Analytics.

SHORTCODES ULTIMATE

This is awesome for things like an accordion menu; instead of writing out the (very lengthy) code, these shortcodes do it all in one sweep. I did a review on this shortcode in my article, Plugin Install & Review; Shortcode Ultimate.

That wraps up my Plugins article! There you have it, hundreds of plugins try try out on your own! Just for fun, check out Lorelle’s Top plugins of 2007: “What Are Your Favorite WordPress Plugins“! Go for it! Write your own review! Comments are always welcome, suggest some of your favorite plugins to others!