Plugin Overload!

There are many times in the course of a month that I am called upon to help “fix” an existing theme or plugin. Recently, in the course of doing just that, I logged into a clients WordPress Admin, and wandered over to the Active Plugins to see what was installed and make note for when I made adjustments. I also do this first to see if there are any plugins with “known” bugs or issues that can be fixed or replaced. To my surprise and sheer amazement, I saw that they had 113 active plugins – YES! You heard right, one-hundred-thirteen. 1-1-3!

WOW. I sat back in my chair and just stared at the screen for a few minutes, probably with a dazed look on my face.  Why on earth would anyone ever want that many plugins, let alone need that many plugins? No wonder they were having problems. No wonder the site was taking “eons” to load, as they put it. Ok. Now I had seen it all – at least this week.

Well, that turned out to be not so, in the seen-it-all department that is. Just minutes later I was blown away again when I realized that not only did they have a ton of plugins, but they had many that did EXACTLY the same thing! And I mean EXACTLY! So, I started marking down similar plugins. After the tally, there were 12 plugins that provided Google Analytics, 8 that provided other site stats (that makes 20 statistical plugins), 4 thumbnail plugins, 7 social networking plugins, 8 related posts type plugins, 3 WordPress update plugins, 2 Plugin Updater plugins, 3 theme preview plugins, and a slew of others including 6 SEO plugins. WHEW!

My first question is, “Why?”

My second question is, “Why?”

My third question is, “Why?”

Of course, the answer I expected was something like, “I could not find one that did ALL that I wanted”, but instead the response was just as shocking as seeing all those plugins – “I don’t know.”

So in this case, I let them plead ignorance, or just a plain lack of understanding of what a plugin is used for. But I am sure, without a doubt, that there are many, many others out there with an over abundance of plugins installed. My record before this example was 68! I thought that was a lot, but at least the site owner knew what all of them were for, and provided a somewhat reasonable explanation of why there were so many. Not knowing why you installed a plugin, or even what a plugin does, is just plain insanity!

When you install plugins, the key question you should ask yourself is, “Why do I need it?”

If you can actually answer that question honestly, and confidently, then maybe you do need it.

Installing a plugin just because you can, is ridiculous – and here’s why:

1. Each and every plugin you add to WordPress has to be loaded and executed when WordPress loads a page or post. Granted, not all plugins need to execute all the code every time, but WordPress has to read through the code to see what is supposed to be used and what is not. That can slow down your site, and in some cases, DRASTICALLY!
2. Every time you add a new plugin, you increase the chance that something will go wrong with your site. Not all plugin creators are well versed in the WordPress API, and may not be using the best coding methods to make the plugin compatible with other plugins. Plugins can break other plugins. Plugins can break your site. Keep that in mind.
3. How many Statistics do you need to know about your site? Almost EVERY statistics plugin that collects site data requires some overhead resources. Why add the extra loading time, extra database calls and extra overhead to your site? Personally, all I use is Google Analytics. It contains enough data for me to know everything important about the site that I want to know. Everything else is overkill.
4. How many plugins that do the same thing do you need to have? If you have to use 6 SEO plugins, then you are doing something wrong! If you are already using one that adjusts the page title, why do you need another one that adjusts the title? They just end up fighting with each other and could end up causing a coding conflict. Not to mention that THEY ARE DOING THE SAME THING – so why use two. That would be like drinking a glass of Coke, then drinking a glass of Pepsi – just to make sure you were drinking cola. Get the point?
5. And last but not least – Why use a plugin for something that WordPress does natively? WordPress is always changing. Upgrading. Expanding. They do listen to what people want and implement a lot of the changes or requests that are offered – if they think they are beneficial as a whole. The minute WordPress adds a new feature that you have installed a plugin for – ditch the plugin! Let WordPress handle it. The only exception would be if the plugin provides an enhanced version of that feature – then you can keep it around. But a WordPress Auto Upgrader, or Plugin Upgrader or Theme tester are obsolete. WordPress does all that now – so ditch the plugins.

To go back to the client case at hand, when I was finished optimizing their site, they had 8 plugins. Eight. The site functioned the same with one noticeable user-end difference – it loaded a lot quicker. I left 1 Google Analytics plugin, 1 SEO plugin, 1 thumbnail plugin, 1 social network plugin and 4 other plugins that added some features they needed for the site to function properly. That’s it. Nothing else. So scale back those plugins – and if you don’t really understand what something does, don’t install it. If you don’t know why you have a plugin installed, deactivate it and see if you really need it. And if you have multiple plugins that do the SAME thing, decide which one you like best and deactivate the others. Your users will be grateful!