One of the hardest things to do after getting your Drupal installation up and running is deciding which Drupal modules that you're going to use. There are literally thousands of modules to choose from, and so this can be quite a daunting task. It's even more overwhelming if you don't have a clear strategy for searching through, filtering down, evaluating and testing the viable module candidates in the vast Drupal contrib repository.

You may have already come across valuable resources such as Lullabot's Top 40 modules podcast, the user ratings and feedback provided at DrupalModules.com, as well as the recently published module usage statistics on Drupal.org that allows you gauge how many people are actively using any particular module.

These are all great resources to be sure, but there is also a lot of really useful information on the health of a module that you can gather directly from the links on the module's project page if you know where to look.

This 8-minute video is an outtake from the "Understanding Drupal" DVD / digital download that features the Lullabot team sharing their module evaluation tricks of the trade. They'll walk you through some of their favorite strategies for quickly filtering down the number of viable module options down to a reasonable number.

If you enjoy these types of insights, then be sure to consider coming down to the "Do It With Drupal" Conference in New Orleans from December 10-12 where team Lullabot and a host of Drupal and outside community experts will be giving out a lot of practical Drupal site building advice like this. This is the last week of the last early bird discounts, and so save yourself a couple of hundred dollars and register today.