· Want to add a social media widget to your website? There’s a plug-in for that.
· Want to add visitor tracking to your site? There’s a plug-in for that.
· Want to add third-party images or content to your site? There’s a plug-in for that.
You guessed it—pretty much for any idea you might have for your website, there’s a third-party downloadable plug-in that can add the functionality you’re looking for. Most are even free.
So What’s The Catch?
Piecework equals bad design. Patching together multiple plug-ins and apps can really lead to an in-cohesive look and feel for your website. It goes against the principles of good design. An ideal design process incorporates all required features and functionality in the beginning with balance in mind—adding things one by one later on can cause clutter and confusion.
Conflicts and crashes can be expected. Just because a given plug-in might work perfectly on its demo site doesn’t mean it will work perfectly (or work at all) with your own site. Code conflicts are fairly common, and getting everything to work together is a small miracle as it is—add random plug-ins and the problems can easily begin.
Free is not always better. Just because you can get an app for free doesn’t mean you should. It might be a buggy pet project or hobby—who knows. But one thing is certain, you shouldn’t experiment with someone else’s hobby on your site unless you can put up with the possible problems and bugs that follow. Do you want your site to come across as unprofessional?
Do you really know what’s being installed? This the other huge catch—even when a plug-in looks and works completely perfect on your site, there’s always a chance that it could actually be a front for spyware or other malware. Unless it’s provided by a completely trusted and reliable source, who knows what could be wrapped into that app…
It’s always best to ask your web professionals first before trying to add any apps or plug-ins to your website. In fact, here at WSpider, we’re always eager to share our favorite “apps” and plug-ins…those we’ve tested and know will work well, exactly as promised. We’ll even be happy to install or build the plug-in into your website.
The bottom line? Be extremely careful—never trust random 3rd party plug-ins or apps. The can cause tons of damage if not done right.
