Reference Manager for WordPress with Footnotes, Citations, Bibliographies, Tooltips and Glossary
by CiteKit · Uncategorized
Also makes 1 other plugin · 70+ installs across the portfolio →
Add sources from DOI, ISBN, PubMed, YouTube and more, then publish citations, footnotes, bibliographies, tooltips and glossaries.
Try it live opens a temporary test site in your browser, which can take about 20 seconds to load. Plugins that rely on outside services or a full server may not work completely there.
Health
B 84/100
Few reviews
Active installs
60+
≈60 estimated
Momentum
+181%
downloads vs prior 30d
Biggest opportunity: Swap “tooltips” for “footnote”. “tooltips” isn't earning its slot: it only gets you to #16. “footnote” sits at #7 untagged, close enough for a declared tag to move it up. All five slots are taken, so one has to go.
84 health vs 58 average across 25,733 Uncategorized plugins
Install conversion
How it's measured →1.7%
of downloads still active
At least 60 of 3.5K lifetime downloads are still running, above its category: the median Uncategorized plugin keeps 0.6%, across 17,767 plugins.
Downloads count every update, not just first installs, so older and more frequently released plugins read lower. Compare against other Uncategorized plugins, not across the directory. wp.org reports active installs as the bottom of a band, so the real rate is this or higher.
This plugin shipped 19 releases in the last 12 months, and every existing install that updated counted as another download. wp.org publishes no split between first installs and updates, so we show the raw rate rather than guess at one.
Details
Directory ranking optimization
How it's scored →How well this listing is tuned to rank in WordPress.org search, on the factors an owner controls. Not popularity, optimization.
Excellent listing optimization
Most to gain: Rating quality
Updated 3 days ago
Tested up to WordPress 7.1.4, the current branch or newer
5.0★ over 2 reviews, smoothed to 4.13★ and held back under 25 reviews
5 of 5 tags set · short description in place
2 of 2 support threads resolved in the last 2 months
To rank higher: Too few reviews to rank on quality — nudge happy users to leave one.
Get the full rank-higher report →Search visibility
How it's tracked →Directory searches this plugin turns up in, and which way each one is moving. WordPress.org publishes no history of search positions, so this starts the day we first tracked a keyword and never backfills.
35
Momentum
Losing ground
-0.5
Velocity
places per keyword, 28d
13%
Breadth
of keywords climbing, 28d
-0.1
Acceleration
recent half vs earlier
wp.org is where the directory puts the plugin for that search. On merit is where it would sit if results were ranked on rating, support and updates, without the install boost. The last column is how far the wp.org position moved, from our first reading in the last 90 days to the latest.
| Keyword | wp.org | On merit | wp.org move, 90 days |
|---|---|---|---|
| citations your tag | #1 | #4 | 0 |
| bibliographies your tag | #1 | #2 | 0 |
| citation | #1 | #2 | 0 |
| bibliography | #1 | #3 | 0 |
| reference | #2 | #12 | down 1 |
| pubmed | #2 | #3 | 0 |
| crossref | #2 | #2 | 0 |
| references | #3 | #19 | down 1 |
| glossary your tag | #7 | #16 | 0 |
| footnotes your tag | #7 | #14 | 0 |
| doi | #8 | #9 | up 1 |
| cite | #6 | #11 | down 2 |
| footnote | #7 | #14 | 0 |
| simple glossary | #5 | #15 | 0 |
| tooltips your tag | #16 | #22 | down 2 |
| bibtex | #8 | #6 | down 1 |
| endnotes | #9 | #14 | down 1 |
| isbn | #14 | #23 | down 1 |
| a z glossary | #6 | #11 | 0 |
| ai citations | #8 | #14 | up 3 |
79 searches this plugin appeared in over the last 90 days, 20 listed. 51 left out as unrelated or noise (years, numbers, stray words).
What to do about it
- Swap “tooltips” for “footnote”. “tooltips” isn't earning its slot: it only gets you to #16. “footnote” sits at #7 untagged, close enough for a declared tag to move it up. All five slots are taken, so one has to go.
- One page off on “tooltips”. #16 puts you just past the first ten results, where almost all the clicks stop. The gap to close is small.
Daily downloads
Since 19 May 2025 · 530 days · wp.org + Plugin Pulse archive
30-day downloads
Rolling 30-day volume · peak 1.3K · peaks are release surges
Directory rank
Ranked about #19,100 to #20,000, alongside the other plugins at 60+ installs. Plugins with the same install count swap places between wp.org requests, so this is where most of them sit. Checked monthly, last on 21 Oct 2026.
Update activity
Downloads in the last 30 days for every 1,000 active sites.
Not enough installs to measure. This needs at least 100 active sites; below that, a handful of downloads reads as tens of thousands.
Release cadence
Actively maintainedHow often this plugin actually ships. A steady rhythm is the maintenance signal a single "last updated" date can't show.
19
releases in the last 12 months
3d ago
latest release · v4.4.8 · 28 Oct 2026
20
tagged releases on record
Recent releases
What its installed base runs
via wordpress.orgShare of active installs on each version of this plugin. Green is the current release; a big slice on older versions is a user base that has stopped updating.
Estimated active installs
The public count shows “60+”. Our estimate pins where the real number sits.
Crossed into this band today and a band this size takes about a year or more to cross, so the real count is still just over 60.
At the current install trend, crossing 70+ in roughly 61 days.
Install history since 5 Jun 2025
Recent reviews
All reviews on wp.org ↗- ★★★★★ thanhhoquangcse964mo ago
Best Plugin for WordPress RAG pipeline
Read on wp.org ↗ - ★★★★★ Jason6mo ago
I have been looking and trying different citation and footnotes plugins for years. and finally someone has created the plugin that replaces all others. Not only is the plugin super simple to install and set up (3 settings in total I believe) and then short code placements. The on page set up is simple and the new pop up feature allows you to enter everything you need on the page in the space you want the cite. – no more highlighting and pasting! With citations you add a professional, stylish and fully backlinked bibliography at the end of the post. And if you want footnotes there’s a short code that adds hover popups on markers, explicit list mode, and a professional numbered and linked footnotes section with custom heading at the end of the page. And then why not add tooltips. Yes Citekit does that too. And in your admin area you have a central library housing every citation you’ve added in one place, with post counts and metadata and the ability to verify that all your source URLs are still reachable. Results are saved and displayed per-citation. No more hunting broken links, Citekit does it all! The only con – very little styling options but luckily the standard set up looks great and if you really want your colors you can add your own css workaround for that! Thanks Citekit – amazing.
Read on wp.org ↗
Behavioral tests
via WP HiveAutomated install-time checks, tested on PHP 8.1.12 · WP 7.0
AI assistants
How it's measured →Whether ChatGPT and Claude name this plugin when asked the category question, and whether the readme gives them something to quote.
Not measured yet for this plugin’s topics. Its tracked searches are not among the measured topics. See the topics measured so far.
Readme readiness
5 of 8 pass · checked 28 Oct 2026Can an assistant quote this readme? Eight deterministic checks over the wp.org listing, no model involved.
- ✓ Says what it does "Add sources from DOI, ISBN, PubMed, YouTube and more, then publish citations, footnotes, bibliographies, to..."
- ! Has a FAQ No FAQ section.
- ! FAQ asks real questions No FAQ to judge.
- ! Names who it is for One audience phrase ("built for"); say who the plugin is for and what they use it for.
- ✓ Names what it works with Mentions Block editor, Yoast, Rank Math, Google Sheets and 1 more.
- ✓ Headings and lists 16 headings and 5 lists.
- ✓ Enough to quote 13,076 characters of description.
- ✓ Tags match the text All 5 tags appear in the text.
Growth timeline
Install-tier crossings we have observed, and how long each tier took to outgrow
- 2026-10-31 50+ → 60+ up after 2 days in tier
- 2026-10-29 60+ → 50+ down after 9 days in tier
- 2026-10-20 80+ → 60+ down after 9 days in tier
- 2026-10-11 70+ → 80+ up after 4 days in tier
- 2026-10-07 80+ → 70+ down after 3 days in tier
- 2026-10-04 70+ → 80+ up after 19 days in tier
- 2026-09-15 60+ → 70+ up after 9 days in tier
- 2026-09-06 50+ → 60+ up after 6 days in tier
Competes with
The plugins that solve the same job, ranked by shared tags then reach, closest match first. The letter on the right is each plugin's health grade (A best, F worst).
-
Easy Footnotes 8K+ installs · 4.6★ · 2 shared tags A -
Modern Footnotes 6K+ installs · 4.5★ · 2 shared tags A -
Footnotes Made Easy 2K+ installs · 4.4★ · 2 shared tags A -
CM Footnotes – Boost your content’s credibility with footnotes, citations, and bibliography 100+ installs · 4.0★ · 2 shared tags B -
Inline Context – Footnotes, Tooltips & Glossary Notes 40+ installs · 4.1★ · 2 shared tags B -
Spindle Dynamic Glossary — installs · 3.6★ · 2 shared tags
Embed this report card
Drop a live Pulse card for Reference Manager for WordPress with Footnotes, Citations, Bibliographies, Tooltips and Glossary into a readme, a review or a deck. It updates itself.
<iframe src="https://plugins.wpmayor.com/embed/citation-reference-manager" width="480" height="300" style="border:0" loading="lazy" title="Reference Manager for WordPress with Footnotes, Citations, Bibliographies, Tooltips and Glossary — Plugin Pulse"></iframe> Reference Manager for WordPress with Footnotes, Citations, Bibliographies, Tooltips and Glossary: 60+ active installs, 5.0★ (2 reviews). Plugin Pulse (WP Mayor), as of 2026-10-31. https://plugins.wpmayor.com/plugin/citation-reference-manager
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