Why & How: 20 most downloaded WordPress plugins ever

The number of WordPress blogs has passed the 50 million mark! It’s an amazing achievement and shows the power of the blogging world and the power of the most popular blogging software.

To celebrate the 50 million mark, here is a look at the most downloaded WordPress plugins ever. These 20 plugins are the very exclusive group that were downloaded more than 1 million times each!

20 most downloaded WordPress plugins ever

All in One SEO Pack - Automatically optimizes your WordPress blog for Search Engines (Search Engine Optimization). Downloads 8,208,465

Akismet - Checks your comments against the Akismet web service to see if they look like spam or not. Downloads 7,010,496

Google XML Sitemaps - Generates a special XML sitemap which will help search engines to better index your blog. Downloads 5,386,430

Contact Form 7 - Just another contact form plugin. Simple but flexible. Downloads 4,203,678

NextGEN Gallery - A full integrated Image Gallery plugin for WordPress with dozens of options and features. Downloads 3,494,547

WordPress.com Stats - Stats with no additional load on your server. Plug into WordPress.com’s stats system with this plugin. Downloads 2,589,702

WP Super Cache - A very fast caching engine for WordPress that produces static html files. Downloads 2,391,929

WPtouch - Mobile theme for your website. Automatically transforms your WordPress blog into an iPhone application. Downloads 2,228,517

Google Analytics - Tracks your site: views per author & category, automatic tracking of clicks and pageviews. Downloads 2,037,340

AddToAny - Help people share your posts using services like Facebook, Twitter, Google, StumbleUpon, and more. Downloads 1,850,470

WP-PageNavi - Adds a more advanced paging navigation interface. Downloads 1,713,578

Fast Secure Contact Form - Customizable contact form. Blocks all automated spammers. No templates to mess with. Downloads 1,586,123

Google Analyticator - Adds the necessary JavaScript code to enable Google Analytics. Includes widgets for Analytics data display. Downloads 1,433,450

GTranslate - Get translations with a single click between 58 languages (more than 98% of internet users) on your website! Downloads 1,215,595

WP e-Commerce - A Web 2.0 application designed with usability, aesthetics, and presentation in mind. Downloads 1,208,872

Sociable - Automatically add links on your posts, pages and RSS feed to your favorite social bookmarking sites. Downloads 1,155,054

SexyBookmarks - Adds an attractive social bookmarking menu to your posts, pages, index, or any combination of the three. Downloads 1,089,436

Yet Another Related Posts Plugin - Displays a list of related posts based on a unique algorithm. Allows customization of the display. Downloads 1,067,965