Merge + Minify + Refresh

How well this listing is tuned to rank in WordPress.org search, on the factors an owner controls. Not popularity, optimization.

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.

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.

43 searches this plugin appeared in over the last 90 days, 16 listed. 27 left out as unrelated or noise (years, numbers, stray words).

Directory rank vs rivals

wp.org popularity rank over time · higher is better · when a rival's line climbs above yours, they've overtaken you

How often this plugin actually ships. A steady rhythm is the maintenance signal a single "last updated" date can't show.

Share 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.

Crossed into this band 33 days ago and a band this size takes about a year or more to cross, so the real count is still just under 4K.

1. ★★★★★ Marisa

   3.6y ago

   I used a website speed test to look at the differences before and after installing this plugin. Of course I waited a while for the merging and minifying to take effect i.e. I visited my website and moved from page to page. The plugin got the number of requests down by 20. What about speed? Well the load time does vary. Even without the plugin, sometimes the website responded a bit faster. It looks like this plugin has reduced the load time for my website by 0.8 seconds. To get this reduction in load time, I had to turn on “enable output buffering” and both “enable preload” options. Without these options turned on the speed increase was about 0.4 or 0.5 seconds. This an excellent result. Thanks very much. Now http2 is supposed to make merging have less effect. Is this really true? Is this still the case? Are all the effects from minifying or are they from merging as well? This topic was modified 3 years, 3 months ago by Marisa.

   Read on wp.org ↗
2. ★★★★★ thorsenrune

   4.2y ago

   It seems to me that: * if the CSS files has @includes it will not work. The option to skip CSS seems to be ignored * If the site is password protected (htpasswd protected site) the minifying part will be skipped.

   Read on wp.org ↗
3. ★★★★★ Adnan Afzal

   4.4y ago

   Great plugin. Works as expected. Thank you.

   Read on wp.org ↗
4. ★★★★★ stepsahead

   4.4y ago

   I discovered that autoptimize generated unwanted 302 redirections. There was a reason for it. autoptimize generates new CSS and JS filenames from time to time. So, then googlebot is lost and autoptimize creates a 302 redirect from old to newly generated CSS and JS files. If you disable their Merge, minify is much better. it uses variables in the URL to show new versions of files. For your information this is the WordPress approach. It is the best because, Googlebot understands it and it does not create a 404 or a 302 when a CSS file or a JS file is refreshed. To my knowledge this plugin is the only one with this approach. It is super simple. The developer of this plugin didn’t add useless features. i like it. You just install and it is ready out of the box. We don’t need other features. We need this plugin to remain efficient with new versions and to remain the best as it is now. I can see that in the background, this plugin does a great job. It reduces the number of files to the minimum and it is really lightweight. By far, this plugin is the best Merge, minify wordpress plugin

   Read on wp.org ↗
5. ★★★★★ cammy999

   5.4y ago

   Combines, but doesn’t properly minify .js and fails on dynamic parts of Woocommerce checkout page – vanilla theme – both .js and css.

   Read on wp.org ↗
6. ★★★★★ rado4you

   6.5y ago

   Funktioniert jetzt auch mit ChildThemes

   Read on wp.org ↗
7. ★★★★★ bloup

   6.5y ago

   <!– wp:paragraph –> <p class=””>I tried autoptimize and it didn’t merge all JS scripts.. I remember I had 6 JS files MMR is much better and significantly decrease the number of javascript files (3 JS files for the same theme). Also, I haven’t seen any error in Google search console after using this plugin. Conversely, after using autoptimize, i got errors saying that some pages weren’t usable on mobile. PLus the plugin is easy to use. This is what we expect from a JS/CSS optimizer. </p> <!– /wp:paragraph –> This topic was modified 4 years, 1 month ago by bloup. This topic was modified 4 years, 1 month ago by bloup. This topic was modified 2 years, 9 months ago by bloup. This topic was modified 2 years, 9 months ago by bloup. This topic was modified 2 years, 9 months ago by bloup. This topic was modified 2 years, 9 months ago by bloup.

   Read on wp.org ↗
8. ★★★★★ DivSmart

   6.5y ago

   My GTMetrix score went from F to A, but then it was so slow executing that Divi Builder would not load. I have max_execution_time settings of 120. As soon as I deactivated the plugin, Divi loaded fast again. It does a good job minifying and concatenating JS, CSS and HTML, but please look into this with Divi, as I cannot fault Divi on this. Please get back to me, as I prefer your plugin over the rest, if you can solve this Divi issue. This topic was modified 6 years, 2 months ago by DivSmart.

   Read on wp.org ↗

Recent releases and news for this plugin

1. — Version 2.15 CSRF fixes 2.15
2. — Version 2.13 Update Closure Compiler to latest version Prevent divide by 0 in isFileMinified 2.13
3. — Version 2.12 Removed GLOB_BRACE which isn’t available on some non GNU systems 2.12
4. — Version 2.11 Fix warning in php error log when accessed time is invalid 2.11
5. — Version 2.10 Fix warning in php error log when WordPress date isn’t set correctly 2.10
6. — Version 2.9 Only remove css and js url vars for files generated by MMR 2.9

All 2 disclosed vulnerabilities are patched in the current version (2.16). Sites still on an older version should update.

1. Patched Medium · 4.3 Merge + Minify + Refresh <= 2.14 - Cross-Site Request Forgery ↗
   2026-01-10 CVE-2026-24384 Cross-Site Request Forgery Affects <= 2.14 Patched in 2.15
2. Patched High · 8.3 Merge + Minify + Refresh <= 1.10.7 - Cross-Site Request Forgery leading to Arbitrary File Deletion and Site Reset ↗
   2020-02-05 Cross-Site Request Forgery Affects < 1.10.8 Patched in 1.10.8

Automated install-time checks, tested on PHP 8.1.12 · WP 7.0.1

Translated into 1 language, 0 at 90% or more · development strings

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.

Growth timeline

Install-tier crossings we have observed, and how long each tier took to outgrow

1. 2026-09-28 4K+ → 3K+ down after 279 days in tier
2. 2025-12-23 5K+ → 4K+ down after 80 days in tier
3. 2025-10-04 4K+ → 5K+ up after 4 days in tier
4. 2025-09-30 6K+ → 4K+ down after 7 days in tier
5. 2025-09-23 5K+ → 6K+ up after 4 days in tier
6. 2025-09-19 6K+ → 5K+ down after 1 days in tier
7. 2025-09-18 4K+ → 6K+ up after 10 days in tier
8. 2025-09-08 6K+ → 4K+ down after 42 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).

Embed this report card

Drop a live Pulse card for Merge + Minify + Refresh into a readme, a review or a deck. It updates itself.

Merge + Minify + Refresh: 3K+ active installs, 4.2★ (68 reviews). Plugin Pulse (WP Mayor), as of 2026-10-31. https://plugins.wpmayor.com/plugin/merge-minify-refresh