The read · 26 Oct 2026
Two plugins own the default
WordPress SEO is a settled two-horse race, and nothing in the last 90 days threatens it. Yoast SEO runs on 10M+ sites and holds 52% of the category's installs. Rank Math adds another 4M+. Both shipped a release within the last three weeks and both hold ratings above 4.8, so neither incumbent is coasting. That's a moat. A newcomer won't move either one by doing meta tags slightly better.
The tier below is more crowded and more interesting. SEOPress, The SEO Framework and SureRank all release often and review well. SiteSEO is the odd one out: it has 400K+ installs, but its 3.94 rating trails everything else near the top. That suggests its installs have grown faster than its users' goodwill.
The AI pitch is where the growth is
Every serious climber this window sells itself on AI. ThinkRank went from a handful of sites to 20K+ installs in 90 days, which put it at #43 in the category. BeyondSEO grew from 2K to 10K. Further down, Visibility went from 100+ to 500+ by pitching optimization for AI answer engines alongside classic search.
The data doesn't show the cause. The pattern suggests a fresh AI angle is the one thing still winning distribution in a category where the basics are already owned. It hasn't lifted the category as a whole, though. Category downloads fell 4.7% over the window, so these gains are probably coming out of someone else's share.
Single-purpose tools are thinning out
The plugins losing ground tell the opposite story. Wppao Sitemap dropped from 10K+ to 5K+ installs, and both APG sitemap feeds, for images and for video, roughly halved. The big suites already do those jobs, and the drift probably reflects sites moving onto a single plugin. Away from the top, far more of the tracked long tail is in poor repair than in good shape. Leaving Yoast and Rank Math aside, that tail is where a site is most likely to end up on a neglected plugin.
Most closures were small and requested by their authors, including Bruce Clay SEO WP on 14 August. The largest was AnyComment, which had 5K+ installs when it closed on 5 October. No reason was recorded.
