At first, when I thought about this issue, I had a brain fart and about calling software that scrapes content onto WordPress blogs were autobots. See what happens when blond hair takes over the brain…

I think it is because of WP Robot, that started the idea off. WP Robot is a plugin for WordPress that allows a use to basically scrape keyword related content selected by the website owner. I see a lot of the sites out there and they are using plugins like WP Robot.

This is without anyone’s permission to post. Often, I see in my WordPress admin panel links to these sites and have to delete them. They have no real value! This is not autoblogging – it IS scraping content. There is no human interaction. How can such a product make people money? Forgive me, but perhaps I just do not understand or it is the fact I would rather physically write my own articles. These sites cannot provide valuable back links no matter how many articles a day the site auto posts. This defeats the purpose of having a site with original content.

What are your thoughts about autoblogging and sites that use them as an article mashup?

With so many blogs out there, I keep hearing about people copying material or ripping off graphics. The plugin, WP-CopyProtect apparently takes care of this issue – for the most part. A person can just view the source of the site by going to the browser’s menu and filch the code directly.

The plugin is suppose to prevent selection text and disables the right click on the site. It is a pretty simple plugin created by Chetan Gole. I am all for preventing theft of hard work. However, this plugin is not a necessity. There are ways to disable right click. If you search the words javascript disable right click on Google, you can find really easy code to insert into your theme. Same goes for searching javascript disable select text on Google.

I do appreciate that this plugin is available, but there are far better alternatives. In fact, a lot of places online provide some nifty javascript tools for site owners and come with easy directions for installation. Most of it is just inserting code in a certain place in the theme’s code. There are also ways you can encrypt your website’s code too.

Have you tried this plugin? What other alternatives can you suggest to those not wanting to install yet another plugin?

I really enjoy using StatPress. Let me re-phrase that – I really enjoyed using StatPress for a time. I would review StatPress Reloaded, but it is only compatible to 2.7.1 and seems to not have any updates soon.

StatPress is a real-time statistics plugin for users to install on their WordPress blog and be able to check through their administration panel. Stats includes are visitors per day, feeds per day, what browsers people are using when visiting, referring sites, and IPs. The plugin was created by Daniele Lippi. Note: Recently Daniele introduced StatPress.org, but still has a StatPress support forum at his site.

The plugin is great, but word of caution is to make sure anyone using this plugin limits the days that they will allow StatPress to collect information. This is important as you can drive up your database. This is also a plugin that does not remove itself fully when you uninstall. You have to go in and manually remove the data tables. This plugin can be bulky and even crash at times.

Sometimes it is slowly when gathering data, so if you have a larger site, you might have to wait a few extra moments for this plugin to do its work. It is useful, but for larger sites, this plugin might not be ideal.

In my humble opinion, it is probably better to try Google Analyticator or the WordPress.com statistics instead.

Do you use StatPress or have you? Or do you use another statistics plugin.

I have noticed a lot of plugins over the years lack the ability to totally uninstall files. What I mean by totally uninstalling is that when you use your WordPress admin panel to delete the files, it does not always take away the database tables that were installed in the beginning. A couple I can think of up front, are Next Gen Gallery and WP Link Directory.

While it might not seem so important for most people, it is important to remove any resources that you do not plan to use on your webhosting space because it could prove to be a way to hack into later on in the future. If hacked, this can run up your resources and suspend, or with some webhosts, they may ask you to upgrade or say they cannot host you.

Also, when you are having some issues with installing a plugin, you may need to uninstall before going back to re-install. Those databases might be conflicting with what you are trying to re-install. It is usually something the plugin author may ask you to do alongside clearing your cache.

These also take up unnecessary space.

As much as you could download a database manager plugin, or Clean Options, a plugin to clean up your MySQL database tables for your WordPress. The problem is, you really do not need to install another plugin to remove plugins. It is unnecessary because it is easy to do.

For those with phpmyadmin, you can simply go in, browse your WordPress database, and look for the tables that reflect the plugins you removed from the front end. A lot of times, plugin creators try to name their database tables as close as possible to the plugin that they can. Just checkmark, select drop, and click the submit (‘go’) button. Presto! They are removed.

I came across Revision Diet after looking for a temporary plugin solution for my blog, Blondish.net. For those unaware, I just cute 150 static pages from the site, but I still have over 120 static pages, and over 300 blog posts. Just imagine the number of revisions I have hoarded! It was insane an putting some strain on the allocation I gave to my individual hosting account on my server.

Installation was easy, and using the plugin is really simple. All you have to do is put the number of revisions you will allow your blog to remember. After that, you can eliminate or as the plugin says ‘trim’ your revisions on your blog by simply clicking a button. It takes a moment to do, but it is worth it. For me, I make a lot of revisions – some even months after I wrote the page or post.

Other plugins I have tried, even the popular ones do not have a way to trim out the posts, and as the Revision Diet plugin creator, David Miller noticed, some of the plugins were only hiding the revisions, not removing them completely. While some people do not even like the revision option at all, this is a way to at least limit how many revisions are saved so any accidental deletions will not occur.

Have you tried this plugin? How has it worked for you? Or if not, do you use a similar plugin?

Better Blogroll is a plugin created by Jon Dyer to allow bloggers to create a blogroll much different from the default WordPress blogroll abilities.

How is it different? Well, in the widgets, you will select how many links you can show, and if you want the links random order, title acending order, and title descending order. You can even add images to show up by the links and much more. This is all done by marking the checkbox fields in the Better Blogroll widget. This makes it easier for those who do not know how to code, or not able to follow the nifty WordPress tutorials. Better Blogroll was recently updated on December 23, 2009 to include the ability to separate the links by categories, and even rate your own links.

The creator also gives a great suggestion on how users can use Better Blogroll as a simple text or image ad rotator too!

I am using Better Blogroll on Blondish.net and have found it to be quite helpful as I really hate to have a long list of links in my sidebar. Of course, I could whip up my own snippet, but choosing this plugin was a great convenience and not much of a hindrance on load time. It also did what I wanted when I have first installed the plugin. I recommend this plugin for anyone that needs something time saving and allow them to organize their blogrolls far more efficiently without being knee deep in code.

Have you tried Better Blogroll? If not, do you try another type of trick or just use the default WordPress blogroll abilities?

Email Chat Contact Button Sidebar is a plugin designed by the creators of ContactMeButton.com with the purpose of extending more ways your visitors can contact you. The plugin allows your readers to contact you through email, live chat, or even instant messenger services, rather than go to separate pages (in some cases of how people set up their site) to get the information and end up leaving your website. The concept of this keeps your visitors on your website.

To use this plugin, you have to sign up at ContactMeButton.com. You will have to go into WordPress admin panel and enter your ContactMeButton.com username so the plugin will work. You can then drag and drop a widget into your sidebar that will display a contact button.

The problem is that this makes you sign up and there is only a 30 day free trial. No offense, then this should not even be listed in the WordPress.org plugin directory unless the creator changes the description to inform people they put ads in the free version (which, remember – is only a 30 day trial anyway.) Currently, there is no disclaimer or notice that this is only a 30 day free trial nor that there are ads. Anyway, after the free trial, the pricing starts at $5 per month and limits your emails received to 120 per month and 60 chat sessions. And even so, you are limited to email and chat received.

You are better off using open source and FREE services like Crafty Syntax Live Help (which is not a WordPress plugin nor comes with one, but its own script that you can copy and paste the source into a sidebar text/html widget) and Oggchat (only allows for one chat operator for their free plan) that allow you to see when the person is online.

It is a nice idea for a plugin, but there are other ways people can get by this without having to sign up and possibly pay another cent.

Have you heard of this plugin or tried it? What do you think?

For those who are in love with plugins, that is fine, but they are not always the solution. Some of those plugins are bulky and not just for the files, but the database request connections they produce. For some web hosts, they crack down hard on people who use more resources than allotted, and that could even be suspension or asking the user to upgrade to a far more expensive package. Of course, a few of them are absolute necessities like Askimet for spam, and FeedBurner FeedSmith for your RSS feeds, Google XML Sitemaps for your sitemap and All-In-One-SEO Pack for adding meta to your posts and pages. (search engine optimization.)

Sometimes you can apply a filter to your site theme instead of download a plugin and this will save some space. Though the number of plugins that are reasonable to have on a WordPress blog are questionable, you have to think about several things.

1. How fast is your site loading for your visitors, even those who have dial-up because they live in places too far out for any choices for good connection?
2. How much resources are your blog using including bandwidth?
3. Do you really need some of the plugins you currently have?
4. Is there an alternate way other than installing a plugin to do the same job?

Outside the fact of the number of plugins, with each upgrade of WordPress, plugin developers have to keep up in order to make sure plugins are compatible, so you must watch your plugins. Some may stop functioning, or even create errors on your site. If you visit your blog daily and see that there is a plugin upgrade available, hold off for a couple days before upgrading. Some developers accidentally load up incomplete plugins (missing files or code… and yes, it does happen), or the code still does not work for many users. This saves the headache of scrambling to fix your site when a plugin messes it up.

With this being said, just because I or anyone else might write a plugin review on WP Addict, it does not necessarily mean you should go and download it. Of course, I love plugin and theme developers, but these are reviews meant to inform people considering the usage of them, rather than say “Hey, download it now!”

What are your views on the usage of plugins? Which ones do you deem most necessary? How many plugins should a WordPress user have installed?

Comment Luv is a plugin that allows webmasters / bloggers to allow their readers who comment to leave a little snippet of what they recently blogged – like their title with a link to the post.

Created by Andy Bailey, this tool helps a lot and It allows the reader to leave a little something that might either interest the blog owner or other visitors to come to their site, based on their most recent post.

For bloggers, every bit counts. While not every webmaster has the most pleasant site name, but they might blog about some pretty useful topics. Even though by default WordPress allows users to enter their web address, Comment Luv goes that extra step further to entice others to visit.

Also, for the readers, every bit of pluggage counts. While a reader may not be able to normally leave within their comment links to parts of their site, Comment Luv has the ability to make sure commenters are respectful and are not as easily lopped in with spammers since some blog owners filter comments to spam if there are more than a certain number of links mentioned in a comment. This plugin literally encourages people to comment.

Do you use Comment Luv? If so, what do you think of it?

Comment Luv has recently allowed their plugin to be integrated with Intense Debate, which is a comment system backed by Automattic, same people behind WordPress.

Chat Catcher, which has a plugin for WordPress users allows bloggers to install their free service and add a “reaction” like in Disqus or trackback entries from Twitter, FriendFeed, and identi.ca, along with various url-shortening services.

Here is what Shannon Whitley, the creator of Chat Catcher said in an email I received for Chat Catcher users:

Greetings,

I’d like to make everyone aware of an issue we are having in processing your comments. The bit.ly url shortening service temporarily blocked Chat Catcher and we were not able to expand bit.ly urls. This has prevented us from linking comments back to your blog if bit.ly was used to shorten the url. Links from other url shortening services were not affected.

This was a temporary situation due to routine maintenance at the bit.ly site. I have been in contact with support staff at bit.ly and we are working on the issue. At this time, you should begin to see comments again.

For some posts, Chat Catcher will go back and retrieve comments that were missed during this period. There are some limitations around historical searches and it’s probably best to assume that most of your missing comments will not be retrieved.

I apologize to those people who have missed comments. As a user of the service, I’m disappointed as well. I am doing everything I can to make sure Chat Catcher runs smoothly and will post any updates to the @ChatCatcher account on Twitter.

Thank you for your support.

Best,

Shannon Whitley
Whitley Media
swhitley AT whitleymedia DOT com

By the way, separated the email address so Shannon would not have any extra spammage.

So, basically until Bit.ly is fixed, Chat Catcher cannot process urls with Bit.ly. However, they will be able to go back and catch up from skipped tweets once they are back up.