Wordpress.org is now providing its own directory of plugins at http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/. Plugins extend the functionality of Wordpress, providing support for doing everything from AJAX-y comments to social bookmarking to spam detection. There are thousands of Wordpress plugins out there. If they’re not the backbone of setting up a Wordpress blog, they are at least the tatts and piercings.

Until now I’ve used http://wp-plugins.net/ for most of my plugin searching (or I’ve just used Google). I’ve even found a few authors who’ve had a nice set of high quality, useful plugins. It will probably take a while before Wordpress.org catches up to the previously existing plugin directories, so I’d suggest not giving up if you’re looking for something and don’t find it at Wordpress.org.

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