WordPress Plug-ins -- What do you use and favor???

I'm about to launch my first blog and would love to have your feedback on the best WordPress plug-ins to use. Would also like to know which plug-ins are the best for SEO, Google Analytics and stats, etc? Thanks.

Just wrote a blog post on this: My 16 Recommended WordPress Plugins & Why I use Them
http://genesisblogging.com/2009/07/m...hy-i-use-them/

Wp-spamfree, Headspace 2, Simple Link Cloaker, Google Site map, WP Super Cache, Hello Dolly(Just for the changing sayings). Actually even though I haven't clicked Traci's hyper link we would probably be basically in agreement. Just don't get carried away, too many can bog down your load time(time it takes your site to fully load), also some plug-ins require one or more things to be done by you to be able to use the plug-in

Great List of plug-ins Traci. I'm going to have to check out a few that I haven't seen before.

Iris, here's my basic list. I have several blogs and use different ones for different purposes, but here's my base list:

Askimet
- used on all blogs for spam comment control.

Google-sitemap-generator
- used to create xml site map for google bots

Feedburner_feedsmith_plugin_2.3
- used for feedburner rss redirect feeds

wp-db-backup.2.2.2
- WP database backup used. Have this set to automatically backup my wordpress tables and email the backup to a separate email account. (NOTE: Does NOT backup the theme or images or downloads folders. Still have to do that manually)

clean-archives-reloaded
- used as archive by month page on one of my sites

dd-archives-sel-cats
- used as archives by category page on one of my sites.


wp-gbcf
- used as the contact form one one site. Very simple, but it requires a page to itself.

cforms.10.6
-use as contact form on one site. Very flexible, in that it allows multiple forms and allows insertion on pages with other things on it, but it does require more complex setup than other contact forms.


Twit this for wordpress
Tweet this button (I'm still looking for a social networking button that includes twitter so I don't have two separate buttons.)


Addthis social widget
Social networking widget. (I"m still researching to see if I can find one I like better)

Stats
Wordpress stats plug in.

Bad Behavior
- blocks spammers from accessing the site.

WP Security Scan
- checks for security holes. (I've had trouble with a hacking on one of my sites and I installed this to help me find where my security holes were. I did not use the rename feature that's included. Only using for information and security detection.)

Thanks for sharing such a great list of plug-ins, guys.

KEEP 'EM COMING!!! :)

Iris,
Hmm it only says I have 4 plug in's but I see 5. Akismet, comment luv, Feedburner, Wordpress Automatic Upgrade and Wordpress Database backup. That's it....

You can always add plug in's at anytime so I just recommend going ahead and getting your blog up and live on the web!

This thread has pointed out most of the essentials, but there are a few not mentioned that I wouldn't want to be without.

Search & Replace is one you might not need often, but will save tons of time if you ever have to change an affiliate link or something throughout your site.

WP SuperCache, which I believe comes with the latest version of WP, is essential if you should luck into a traffic rush. It's best to only enable it if you're expecting a rush of traffic, though, since it can conflict with some other plugins.

AZIndex will create a book-like alphabetical index page of your site's entries.

Recently Popular is a widget that will put list most viewed posts of a time period of your choice.

Robots Meta is a good SEO tool that will put a handy htaccess box in your settings.

WP Super Edit will greatly expand the feature buttons of the WP WYSIWYG editor.

As for Twitter-posting plugins, I've found both Twitter tools and Twitter Poster to be unreliable, stopping without notice sometimes. The best way I've found to post to Twitter is to use a free website called Twitter Feed that allows you to set up regular title posting from your blog's RSS feed. You can even set it to post at timed intervals.

--Wade Watson