Earlier this year, we highlighted a WordPress plug-in called Clean Archives Reloaded. By using that plug-in, you can have an archives page on your blog that is extremely streamlined. The months are collapsible and then each post has its own link. It appears to be a pretty useful plug-in, because every blog should have a good archives page. The default WordPress archive is not nearly as useful.

An alternative to Clean Archives Reloaded is Smart Archives. It serves pretty well the same function, except it does not have collapsible months. Instead, every post is displayed as part of a list under its corresponding month. You can see Smart Archives in action over at Beyond the Rhetoric. The N4R Most Commented Plug-In is also being used on that archives page.

One key advantage to Smart Archives is that it is meant to be future-proof. In this way, when it comes time to upgrade to a new version of WordPress (WP 2.6 Beta is now available), the plug-in won’t “break” like how some other plug-ins start to malfunction under the framework of a new WordPress build.

Whether you choose to go with Clean Archives Reloaded or Smart Archives, it is important that your blog’s archives page is as user-friendly as possible. You want to encourage readers to explore your older articles, after all.