2. Redirection – 26.85%
The Redirection plugin is used by almost 27% of users, which is curious because redirection is something that can be handled in the built-in redirection manager tool in Kinsta’s dashboard. I use the Redirection plugin on some of my sites and it does a lot more than redirects. The plugin features 404 error reporting which alerts users to a problem like a typo in the URL of an external or internal link, which can be fixed by redirecting the typo to the correct URL. The plugin can also set security headers, which is useful for strengthening site security.
1. Yoast – 57.95%
Yoast is the most popular plugin installed on sites according to the scan Kinsta performed on 140,000 sites. In a way it’s not surprising because Yoast is installed on over 10+ million websites and is a trusted brand.
Takeaways:
The choice of plugins suggest what concerns WordPress users the most, SEO, website performance, and proper site functioning.
Search Optimization
SEO is a strong concern to WordPress users, with a combined total of 86.19% of users employing an SEO plugin. The small percentage of users that install a dedicated structured data plugin (1.75%) or XML sitemap generator (2.17%) indicates that most users are satisfied with the built-in features of their SEO plugins.
Website Performance
Over 30% of managed WordPress host users in the surveyed sample of 140,000 sites are concerned enough about performance optimization to install plugins (WP Rocket 19.10% and Imagify 11.62%).
Site Health Maintenance
Over 30% of sites are concerned that their sites are working properly, as evidenced by the amount of users that install the Redirection and Broken Link Checker plugins.
Brand Trustworthiness
Over 95% of WordPress users turn to a name brand plugin:
Yoast 57.95%
WP Rocket 19.10%
Rank Math 18.32%
These findings suggest that trust and reliability, comprehensive functionality, and ease of use are important factors guiding the choice of WordPress plugins. It’s possible that trustworthy word of mouth recommendations and brand awareness also play a role in plugin choices.
Notable in this survey of plugins that users consider the best is that security plugins did not make the list. This is likely because Kinsta provides built-in WordPress security, including two firewalls and enterprise-level DDoS protection.
Featured Image by Shutterstock/Asier Romero