The default WordPress install is a good start, but not only lacks some serious functionality, but has some that you don’t want. Included on your sidebar in a default install are Meta links, which include links to verify that your blog uses valid XHTML 1.0, CSS, etc, as well as a link to your Admin area.

It’s very important that everything on your blog provides some sort of actual value to your readers. While it’s very convenient to just be able to click your Admin link on your sidebar, you’re probably the only person to ever use that link. That’s a link that provides no value what-so-ever to your readers. The validation is the same idea. How many people do you think really care if your site validates XHTML 1.0 Strict?

Taking out the Meta links and replacing that valuable space with something worthwhile is one of the first things I do in a new WordPress install. Different themes may do it differently, but most themes I’ve seen come an option to turn off the Meta links. Do it! Other themes you may have to go into your links section of your admin panel and delete them, or go into your sidebar.php file and remove that section (Presentation -> Theme Editor.)

Now you can just add your admin panel to you Firefox bookmark toolbar and click it to open up your admin panel!

Keep those URLs under control with WP Chunk, a great little plugin that takes those long URLs and compresses them into a much better-looking and less destructive link, while still keeping it intact.

You can even define how long you would like the truncated link to be (in characters.) Take a look at the first comment below to see what the plugin does to the long URLs.

Download WP-Chunk for WordPress

**link removed**

This isn’t necessarily Google’s fault, but by default, WordPress automatically adds “nofollow” tags to all comment and author links when anybody leaves a comment. This was done to reduce the benefits to comment spammers, but this also stops rewarding legitimate contributers. Plugins such as Akismet and Bad Behavior have all but completely stopped comment spamming for bloggers, so there isn’t as much risk if you leave off the nofollow tag.

I’ve decided to install the Dofollow WordPress Plugin on this blog (and AutomoBlog.net,) because I believe that if someone takes the time out of their day to comment on one of my posts, then they deserve to be rewarded for it by a link back to their site. Obviously if this is going to be abused I’ll have to remove it, but i don’t see any problems in the near future.

Any thoughts?