Good Reads
Google’s Blogger tool has a great blogroll gadget, which I’ve always wanted in WordPress. I tried a few plugins that advertised similar behavior but was never quite satisfied – so I made my own.
Consider an alternative
Good Reads shows warning signs in 2026 — compare the alternatives below before installing. It runs on 10+ sites and was last updated 16 years ago, and scores 23/100 on our health check.
- Small user base (10+ active installs)
- Very few reviews so far
- No update in 15 years
- Only tested up to WordPress 3.1 (latest is 7.1)
How does it stack up?
Side-by-side on installs, updates, ratings & support
Daily downloads
Download spikes usually follow a new release — each site that auto-updates counts as a download.
Rankings
Where Good Reads stands todayWordPress.org search rankings
Live position in the plugin search, top 100| Keyword | Position |
|---|---|
| blogroll | #68 |
| Blogs | >100 |
| links | >100 |
| rss | >100 |
| sidebar | >100 |
Version adoption
Share of active sites per release.
About Good Reads
From the official readme · v1.5Description
Google’s Blogger tool has a great blogroll gadget, which I’ve always wanted in WordPress. I tried a few plugins that advertised similar behavior but was never quite satisfied – so I made my own.
This will grab all your links with a category of ‘sidebar’ and show them in a list on your sidebar. Specify each link’s RSS/Atom feed address and it will grab the latest post, a link, and reorder the list based on when these posts were written. It only requires that you have jQuery and PHP and uses the Links and Widget section already included in WordPress.
Installation
- Upload ‘good-reads.php’ to the ‘wp-content/plugins’ directory.
- Activate the plugin through the ‘Plugins’ menu in WordPress.
- Go to the ‘Widgets’ screen in ‘Appearance’ and add ‘Good Reads’ to your Sidebar.
- Go to your WordPress’ ‘Links’ and create a category called ‘Sidebar’.
- Add this category and the feed URL (in the RSS Address field) to each link you want to appear in ‘Good Reads’.
Changelog
You may need to go to your Widgets menu in WP, open the Good Reads menu and click 'Save' to enact new settings. Tested with WP 3.1 More control
1.5
- Restructured the way the plugin and widget are built to meet with more recent WordPress standards.
- New widget option: Ordering – Choose to have your links listed by publish date or by site title.
- New widget option: Tabs – Choose if your links open in a new tab or in the same tab.
20110218 (1.0)
- Public release!
Screenshots
For developers
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Best Good Reads alternatives
All blogroll plugins →
FAQ
Good Reads: quick answers
Straight answers, pulled from live WordPress.org data.
Live data from WordPress.org · checked Oct 4, 2026
Is Good Reads free?
Yes. Good Reads is free to download and use from the official WordPress.org plugin directory.
Is Good Reads safe to use in 2026?
Good Reads shows warning signs in 2026 — compare the alternatives below before installing. It runs on 10+ sites and was last updated 16 years ago, and scores 23/100 on our health check.
How many websites use Good Reads?
Good Reads is active on 10+ WordPress websites and has been downloaded 4,060 times since it launched in February 2011. It was downloaded 79 times in the last 30 days.
Does Good Reads work with WordPress 7.1?
Good Reads is officially tested up to WordPress 3.1.4, while the latest release is 7.1.2. It may still work, but try it on a staging site first.
When was Good Reads last updated?
The latest version, 1.5, was released on March 4, 2011 (16 years ago).
Who makes Good Reads?
Good Reads is developed and maintained by iamgarrett.
What are the best alternatives to Good Reads?
The most popular alternatives to Good Reads are Link Manager (20K+ installs), Eazy Enable Blogroll (1K+ installs) and Link View (700+ installs).
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