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7 Worst WordPress Plugins You Should Delete Immediately

ByNina Clapperton Updated on

Plugins can make or break your blog – quite literally!

Great plugins will make your blog more functional. Usually they’re not just a design element, but something that actually moves your site forward.

Bad plugins turn your site into a straight up dumpster fire. They conflict with other plugins and break things. They slow down your site. And they bloat your backend.

While some of us want a BBL, we don’t want one on your site! We want one of those teenty tiny 90’s backends.

After 6 years blogging, I’ve tried a lot of plugins – and I’ve definitely used some baddies. I’m gonna share 7 plugins I truly believe are the worst things ever.

But I’m not just going to leave you in the lurch. I’ll show you what to replace them with, too!

1. Jetpack

Let’s start off controversially, shall we?

Jetpack is the plugin that comes pre-installed on WordPress sites. It’s where most people first track their analytics.

But it’s also like quicksand for your site speed: the bigger you get, the more it slows down your site.

I’ve seen so many sites loading in 10 seconds speed up to 3 seconds just from removing Jetpack and all it’s bloat.

Just because something comes pre-installed, doesn’t mean it should stick around.

I feel the same way about MonsterInsights and other plugins that just pull analytics onto your site. Why??

What to Use Instead

Jetpack claims to do a lot of things (most of which it doesn’t do very well), so let’s go through the list:

  • Analytics: Just use G4. If you hate G4, then use Google Site Kit if you must. I use this free Lookerdata studio to interpret my G4.
  • Security: Login Lockdown, Akismet Spam
  • Backups: Updraft Plus
  • Image Compression: ShortPixel or TinyPNG
  • Related Posts: Manually insert them

2. Woocommerce

If you are not an e-commerce store, get Woocommerce off your website.

Woocommerce is so notorious for its poor speed that it recommends you use a second plugin called “Disable Woocommerce Bloat” just to manage it. (Btw, it doesn’t help. I tried it.)

The reason Woocommerce is a problem is that it runs the “cart” from your checkout on every single page of your site. So if you only sell 5 things but you have 200 blog posts on your site, every single one is going to have to run the code.

If you’re an e-commerce site, that’s not a problem because the cart should run on every single page.

Think of Amazon. We want our cart to remember our stuff as we click through all the products.

But would that be helpful when you’re browsing The Blonde Abroad for travel tips? Not so much.

What to Use Instead

We have a few options.

Option 1: Put Woocommerce on a subdomain.

Option 2: Replace Woocommerce with an off-site cart, like Gumroad or Thrivecart.

Option 3: Make a store page that has thumbnails that link to the products – either off site or on site.

Option 4: Create a Shopify site and connect the two (most bloggers don’t need this. You’d need an extensive product list for this or physical products).

Option 5: Sell via Etsy/Amazon and link it to your site.

3. Any Instagram Feed Plugin

All Instagram carousels and feeds can get in the bin.

I get it: they’re pretty!

But they run so much code trying to fetch your latest pictures/reels, move between them, and link ever single picture to a different post.

If it was static it wouldn’t be as bad, but since it needs to constantly check for new data, it’s a problem.

Plus, I’ve never seen a single one that converts well enough to justify it’s inclusion.

What to Use Instead

Most of us should just delete it and not have anything. You’ll notice I don’t have any on this site.

I just use my Instagram account icon to move people over to the Gram. Most people who want blogs want to stay on blogs though. Same for people not wanting to leave Instagram to go to a blog.

If you do want to show off your feed, the best way is to select images and upload them into a statum arrangement. You can mimic the look of an Instagram carousel but making multiple columns (usually 6) and each has an image from your feed. You can even link them to the relevant post.

It doesn’t really matter if they’re up to date to the top of your feed or not, so you can get away with the same photos for a fairly long time and save tons of site speed.

4. Broken Link Checker

This plugin doesn’t do what it says on the tin and it drives me mental.

The plugin is meant to go over your whole site to find broken links. Simple, right?

Except it identifies any affiliate links as broken – Amazon 100% of the time. And it regularly misses broken internal links.

I tried it recently and it told me I had over 400 broken links … but 4 other broken link checkers each said about 50.

I’d have had to click through 350 links and waste my time to check that they were really broken. It’s too much of a time suck.

Also, since it regularly runs in the backend of your site to check on the broken links, it’s a speed suck.

What to Use Instead

I recommend Broken Link Check.

It’s a website, so no slow site speed. And I find it way more accurate than the plugin.

It does miss redirected internal links once in a while, but like 1 every 6 months so not nearly as bad (and to be fair, they have a redirection so not fully broken).

5. Related Posts Plugins

Specifically, “Yet Another Related Posts Plugin”.

All Related Posts plugins are kind of dumb. They pull randomly from posts on your site that often have nothing to do with the post in question.

I’ve had them recommend posts about bearded dragons when I was talking about dog friendly restaurants (fake example, but it was just as ludicrous).

These plugins also run a slider carousel which are basically always a no-no for site speed.

What to Use Instead

I recommend manually placing related posts.

You’ll notice a list of them at the bottom of this post that I manually curated based on what I think you’ll enjoy next. I ensured the items are all in the same pillar – not just the same category – and are relevant to the same audience and their pain points.

That will mean people actually use the related posts you include.

Those plugins just select something random.

6. Grow.Me by Mediavine

I’ll probably get some hate for this, but it’s genuinely the worst script I’ve seen.

It’s not technically a plugin, but it operates like one so I’m including it.

Grow.Me is meant to be Mediavine’s answer to the retirement of 3rd party cookies on Chrome in January 2024.

It has a few functions: related posts sections that are AI curated to predict what the user wants to see next, spotlight subscribe widgets that are less obtrusive pop ups that still pop up, the ability to paywall content for email list subscribers, and the ability to make an account across blogs to opt into giving 3rd party data.

The code added 22s to my site’s loading time and every time I spoke to Mediavine – including 2x in person at conferences – I got gaslit about it never having caused a speed issue for anyone.

The moment I deleted the code from my site, my traffic tripled.

Now not everyone is seeing the same. But it seems like if you’re running Mediavine ads, there’s a massive slow down. If this plugin works for you and isn’t causing speed issues, great! But if it is, it’s the kiss of death so delete it immediately.

What to Use Instead

  • Email Signups: Just embed the code for your form. And use normal pop ups – they convert better – when needed but set it to a 10 second delay.
  • Related Posts: Do it manually. Their suggestions were always really weird.

The biggest issue with it is that the plugin just doesn’t convert. General users don’t know what it is, so they don’t sign up. Same goes for the email opt ins – they reduced my sign ups significantly and because you can’t have a tripwire it also reduced my income.

There were lots of red flags with it, too. Like the Mediavine team at a conference couldn’t answer basic questions about it. If the marketing team doesn’t know what it does or how it works, I don’t want to use it.

7. Contact Form 7

Contact forms are a spam magnet on a good day. On a bad day, they also slow down your site.

This plugin is incredibly popular and I’ll never understand why since it has the same issues as Woocommerce without the benefits: it runs scripts across your entire site, even if a post doesn’t have a contact form.

I found it also did one of the worst jobs at blocking spam of any contact form I’ve tried.

What to Use Instead

I just put my email for people to message me: nina [at] sheknowsseo.co (see it in action here).

This was bots can’t auto-email me, but real people can.

If you really want a contact form, I’d hesitantly recommend Forminator or Ninja Forms. But I’m very much in camp don’t-need-a-form.

Honorable Mentions from my Bad Plugin Graveyard

I’ve tried so many bad plugins over the years that I couldn’t just keep it to 7! So I’ve got even more for you to avoid:

  • Any map plugin – They’re slow AF (Google maps is the only exception when you embed it)
  • Slider Revolution – Bloated code.
  • Yoast – Slower and less effective than Rankmath.
  • Elementor – Kinda a plugin so I’ll include it. I hate Elementor. It’s got too many pieces of stylistic code.
  • Smush – Use Shortpixel instead. It does a better job at compressing pictures.
  • Any email plugin – You don’t need it. Install the code for pop ups in your header area and embed forms where you need them.
  • Any “starter template” – You can use it to install your template, then delete it.
  • Autoptimize – Didn’t really do anything when I tried it. Not a fan.
  • File Manager – 99% of people don’t need this.
  • Hello Dolly – I don’t understand why anyone uses this plugin.
  • Font Awesome – Stop installing custom fonts. No one can read them and they’re slow.

Plugins I like that are speed sucks:

These plugins are helpful, but shouldn’t be on your site at all times. Install them when you need them, then delete them.

  • Query Monitor – Identify slow plugins (that’s how I found many of the above).
  • Updraft Plus – Great for backups when you put them on a Google Drive, but slow while backing up. If your host does backups, you don’t need this constantly.
  • WP Optimize – Great for deleting old plugin files lurking on your backend, but too slow to leave on all the time.
  • Query Hunter – I haven’t had any speed issues myself, but if you notice any, remove it and only install when you’re actively doing a content audit.

So what plugins do I recommend? Head over to my favourite WordPress plugins to find out!

Read More WordPress Blogging Tips

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Nina Clapperton is the founder of She Knows SEO.

She started blogging in 2018 and spent years doing everything “right” while earning $0. Then she stopped guessing and learned how search actually works. She rebuilt her travel site around audience intent and structure and grew to 50,000 sessions in 6 months. Within a year, the blog was bringing in $30,000 months and later crossed 243,000 pageviews.

She took the same audience first SEO approach and built her education business into multiple $100,000 months.

Now Nina teaches bloggers and online business owners how to build search powered businesses grounded in strong positioning, clear structure, and monetisation that actually supports their audience. She covers traditional SEO and AI driven search without the tech bro noise, and she’s known for explaining complex strategy with analogies you won’t forget.

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