The top six on the list are:
- Akismet - about 30%
- WP-Cache - about 23%
- Google Sitemap - Generator about 12%
- WP-Supercache - about 6 %
- Contact Form 7 - about 5%
- WP-DB-Backup - about 4%
Three of these top 6 are default plugins but some of the non-default plugins are a lot higher on the list than several other default plugins. A lot of users are installing some type of analytic or statistic related options, with at least 5 making the list. Since Google Sitemap made it so high on the list we will look at some of the benefits and features.
- Automatically generate a sitemap for all types of WordPress pages
- Calculate a priority for each post, based on number of comments
- Notifies Ask.com, Google, Bing, and Yahoo about changes
- Includes a filter for other pulgins that can add their pages to the sitemap
- Generates a static XML file as well as a zipped version
- No PHP skills or file changes needed
- Available in many languages
Sitemaps are a great way to let search engines know about your site. Because they include all the URLs for your site the search engines are able to do a better job of finding new updates, relative importance of each page, and how often updates are made. This can also be a handy tool for visitors to your site if they are looking for a specific page and don't see a link right away.
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