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Readability Buttons (readability.com)

by Sparanoid · Social

Also makes 9 other plugins · 2.5K+ installs across the portfolio →

Adds readability.com widget on your site.

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.

⚠ Few reviews

Health

B 83/100

Few reviews

Active installs

10+

≈15 estimated

Momentum

+97%

downloads vs prior 30d

Biggest opportunity: “button”, “readability” and “share” aren't earning a slot. You list them, but you're not in the first 24 results for those searches. WordPress.org counts only your first five tags, so free the slot for a search you can win.

How scoring works →
83 Health · B
Maintenance 100/100
Rating quality 74/100
Support 70/100

83 health vs 58 average across 1,834 Social plugins

Install conversion

How it's measured →

0.1%

of downloads still active

At least 10 of 6.7K lifetime downloads are still running, below its category: the median Social plugin keeps 0.5%, across 1,276 plugins.

Downloads count every update, not just first installs, so older and more frequently released plugins read lower. Compare against other Social 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 1 release 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

Version
2.1.5
Last updated
19d ago
Added
2011-02-20 · 15 yrs old
Requires WP
2.8
Tested up to
5.0.31
Requires PHP
—

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.

68 / 100

Room to improve

Most to gain: WP compatibility

Update recency 100/100

Updated 19 days ago

WP compatibility 11/100

Tested up to WordPress 5.0.31; the current branch is 6.8

Rating quality 51/100

5.0★ over 1 review, smoothed to 4.12★ and held back under 25 reviews

Listing tuning 100/100

5 of 5 tags set · short description in place

To rank higher: Set "Tested up to" to WordPress 6.8; lagging the current branch costs search weight.

Get the full rank-higher report →

Daily downloads

Since 5 Oct 2022 · 1,488 days · wp.org + Plugin Pulse archive

+97% vs prior 30d
331 Oct 2026

30-day downloads

Rolling 30-day volume · peak 110 · peaks are release surges

11031 Oct 2026

Directory rank

Ranked about #30,100 to #45,000, alongside the other plugins at 10+ 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.

Health trend

Composite health score, snapshotted daily

8331 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

Occasionally updated
from wp.org release tags

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

1

releases in the last 12 months

19d ago

latest release · v2.1.5 · 12 Oct 2026

19

tagged releases on record

Recent releases

2.1.5 · 12 Oct 20262.1.4 · 31 Dec 20162.1.3 · 22 Apr 20162.1.2 · 28 Nov 20152.1.1 · 6 Sep 20152.1.0 · 8 May 20152.0.11 · 6 Sep 20142.0.10 · 19 Dec 20132.0.9 · 15 Dec 20132.0.8 · 9 Aug 20132.0.7 · 31 Jan 20132.0.6 · 14 Dec 20122.0.4 · 25 Nov 20122.0.3 · 19 Sep 2012

What its installed base runs

via wordpress.org

Share of active installs on each version of this plugin · 100% run the current release. Green is the current release; a big slice on older versions is a user base that has stopped updating.

v2.1 100%

Estimated active installs

The public count shows “10+”. Our estimate pins where the real number sits.

tracked estimate
10–20 ≈15

Crossed into this band 4.1 years ago; the previous band took 3.6 years to cross, which places it about 50% of the way through.

Install history since 29 Nov 2015

1031 Oct 2026

Recent reviews

All reviews on wp.org ↗
  1. ★★★★★ Terence Milbourn
    12.9y ago

    I have a “dark” site and so the white buttons don’t look very good on a black background. Would be really nice if there was a since switch to an alternative CSS style like “dark” or “transparent”. I am sure more people would then use it.

    Read on wp.org ↗

Behavioral tests

via WP Hive

Automated install-time checks, tested on PHP 7.2.16 · WP 5.4

✓ Low memory footprint
✓ Low page-speed impact
✕ Runs on latest PHP + WP
✕ No PHP errors
✓ No JS errors
✓ Activates cleanly
✓ No resource errors
✓ No external HTTP errors
✓ Optimized database use
✕ Frequently updated

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

2 of 8 pass · checked 31 Oct 2026

Can an assistant quote this readme? Eight deterministic checks over the wp.org listing, no model involved.

  • ✓ Says what it does "Adds readability.com widget on your site."
  • ! Has a FAQ No FAQ section.
  • ! FAQ asks real questions No FAQ to judge.
  • ! Names who it is for Never says who the plugin is for or what they use it for.
  • ✓ Names what it works with Mentions Multisite.
  • ! Headings and lists 0 headings and 0 lists; assistants quote headed sections and bullet lists, not paragraphs.
  • ! Enough to quote 223 characters of description; under 1,000 there is little to quote.
  • ! Tags match the text Only 2 of 5 tags appear in the text ("button", "share", "sidebar" missing).

Growth timeline

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

  1. 2022-10-04 50+ → 10+ down after 1326 days in tier
  2. 2019-02-16 60+ → 50+ down

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 Readability Buttons (readability.com) into a readme, a review or a deck. It updates itself.

<iframe src="https://plugins.wpmayor.com/embed/readability-buttons" width="480" height="300" style="border:0" loading="lazy" title="Readability Buttons (readability.com) — Plugin Pulse"></iframe>
Preview card ↗

Readability Buttons (readability.com): 10+ active installs, 5.0★ (1 reviews). Plugin Pulse (WP Mayor), as of 2026-10-31. https://plugins.wpmayor.com/plugin/readability-buttons

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