Over the years, we have locked in on a “go-to” set of old faithfuls. Almost without fail, these plugins are installed before the first pixel is altered or the first word penned.  So without further delay, here’s our list of 10 WordPress plugins we cannot live without (feel free to ad your links to other indispensables in the comments below):

1. All-In-One SEO Pack Does what is says…says what it does. Finer-tuned adjustments of keywords and page titles.
2. Ad Rotator Widget A highly flexible little bit of code, perfect for callouts and, well, ads, of course.
3. FormBuilder Essential for sites that need multiple, different, customized forms, and a simple interface for managing and assigning them to pages. Go ahead…get carried away!
4. PodPress The quintessential plugin for managing a podcast on WordPress. It’s the little extras that have always wowed us with this one, and the incredible work put into it by Dan Kuykendall!
5. Google XML Sitemaps Some say it helps, others say don’t bother. But every time we install it on an established blog, we see positive jumps. That’s reason enough for us!
6. Maintenance Mode Making changes under the hood? Switch over to a maintenance page with the click of a button. Stylable, customizable, clean, simple functionality. Surprised this one hasn’t been baked into the core code already. Just remember to turn it off when you are done.
7. Subscribe2 Yes, it’s admittedly pretty Web 1.0, but we still have people who prefer to sign up for email notices. Who are we to stand in the way of those standing in the way of progress, right?
8. WP Email Also old-school, but clients always ask for this functionality, and the potential for abuse has never materialized for us. Anyone disagree?
9. WP Print The super-fast and easy way to get a stylesheet up and running for print-versions of your posts.
10. Akismet (of course!) If you don’t know what this one does, it’s because you’ve been so buried in spam email for YEARS that you haven’t been able to come up for air. Pity.
11. BONUS: ThinkDesign Blog’s Test Post Pack A no mess, no fuss way to make sure yo are styling all your elements correctly, without forgetting anything. Sure beats the manual method of creating a bunch of posts, ages and comments with various kinds of content!

These fine coders are all worthy of your accolades and donations. Because of them, web sites actually DO things.

(TIP for designers: I created a directory on my computer that contains all of these plugins, so copying them up to a new WP instalation is super-quick. They are all outdated versions, of course, but with WP v2.7, I can click and upgrade them all very quickly before activating them.)