Speed up Contact Form 7
by Hella Fast · Performance
Loads Contact Form 7, reCAPTCHA, Turnstile and add-on assets only on pages that actually show a form.
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
300+
≈380 estimated
Momentum
+84%
low volume, under 1,000 downloads a month
Biggest opportunity: Swap “optimize” for “contact form 7 recaptcha”. “optimize” isn't earning its slot: you're not in the first 24 results for its own search. “contact form 7 recaptcha” sits at #23 untagged, close enough for a declared tag to move it up. All five slots are taken, so one has to go.
84 health vs 69 average across 1,806 Performance plugins
Install conversion
How it's measured →7.2%
of downloads still active
At least 300 of 4.1K lifetime downloads are still running, above its category: the median Performance plugin keeps 1.4%, across 1,105 plugins.
Downloads count every update, not just first installs, so older and more frequently released plugins read lower. Compare against other Performance plugins, not across the directory. wp.org reports active installs as the bottom of a band, so the real rate is this or higher.
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 31 days ago
Tested up to WordPress 7.1.4, the current branch or newer
4.7★ over 3 reviews, weighted for review count to 4.1★ and held back under 25 reviews
5 of 5 tags set · short description in place
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
-0.9
Velocity
places per keyword, 26d
14%
Breadth
of keywords climbing, 26d
-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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| speed up | #20 | #24 | 0 |
| contact form 7 recaptcha | #23 | #23 | down 4 |
| redirection contact form 7 | #10 | #19 | 0 |
| contact form 7 stripe | #17 | #22 | — |
| fast contact form | #21 | #22 | down 1 |
| contact form 7 your tag | Not in the top 24 | ||
| optimize your tag | Not in the top 24 | ||
| pagespeed your tag | Not in the top 24 | ||
| performance your tag | Not in the top 24 | ||
| recaptcha your tag | Not in the top 24 | ||
9 searches this plugin appeared in over the last 90 days, 5 listed. 4 left out as unrelated or noise (years, numbers, stray words). 5 of its tags aren't in the top 24 for their own search.
What to do about it
- Swap “optimize” for “contact form 7 recaptcha”. “optimize” isn't earning its slot: you're not in the first 24 results for its own search. “contact form 7 recaptcha” sits at #23 untagged, close enough for a declared tag to move it up. All five slots are taken, so one has to go.
Daily downloads
Since 5 Oct 2022 · 1,489 days · wp.org + Plugin Pulse archive
30-day downloads
Rolling 30-day volume · peak 459 · peaks are release surges
Directory rank
Ranked about #10,100 to #11,100, alongside the other plugins at 300+ 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 1 Nov 2026.
Health trend
Composite health score, snapshotted daily
Update activity
How busy the existing users are, measured as downloads in the last 30 days for every 1,000 active sites. A spike means a new release everyone's pulling; a long, slow decline means an aging user base that updates less.
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 “300+”. Our estimate pins where the real number sits.
Crossed into this band 3 months ago and a band this size takes about a year or more to cross, so the real count is still just under 400.
Install history since 4 Oct 2022
Recent reviews
All reviews on wp.org ↗- ★★★★★ joeaudet5.6y ago
This worked great to solve my issue of the ReCaptcha v3 showing up on EVERY page with Contact Form 7. I tried several variations of code for disabling the loading of the scripts on pages that were not my contact form, and none of them worked properly. This was tested with WP v5.7 and CF7 v5.4 successfully, confirmed with a debug / fiddler trace that the scripts were not downloaded by the client.
Read on wp.org ↗ - ★★★★★ teim5.7y ago
Recommend this plugin! This topic was modified 5 years, 5 months ago by teim.
Read on wp.org ↗ - ★★★★★ Thyrosis5.8y ago
This plug-in does exactly what it says it does. But, even more important: it removes the Google reCaptcha files from all the pages that don’t use a Contact Form 7 form in the page. This is not only a speed-boost, but makes your website less Googly and more privacy friendly. It doesn’t take a sidebar into account though (hence the 4*). But, for the site I’m currently working on, that’s not an issue. I’m very happy with the simplicity of this plug-in and would definitely recommend it.
Read on wp.org ↗
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.
This plugin’s searches fall outside the topics measured so far. See the topics measured so far.
Readme readiness
2 of 8 pass · checked 27 Oct 2026Can an assistant quote this readme? Eight deterministic checks over the wp.org listing, no model involved.
- ✓ Says what it does "Loads Contact Form 7, reCAPTCHA, Turnstile and add-on assets only on pages that actually show a form."
- ! Has a FAQ Only 2 questions in the FAQ; 3 or more gives an assistant something to match.
- ! FAQ asks real questions 0 of 2 FAQ entries are headings, not questions ("undefined").
- ! Names who it is for Never says who the plugin is for or what they use it for.
- ✓ Names what it works with Mentions Contact Form 7, Stripe, Cloudflare.
- ! Headings and lists 0 headings and 1 list; assistants quote headed sections and bullet lists, not paragraphs.
- ! Enough to quote 666 characters of description; under 1,000 there is little to quote.
- ! Tags match the text Only 2 of 5 tags appear in the text ("Optimize", "pagespeed", "performance" missing).
Growth timeline
Install-tier crossings we have observed, and how long each tier took to outgrow
- 2026-08-13 400+ → 300+ down after 319 days in tier
- 2025-09-28 500+ → 400+ down after 537 days in tier
- 2024-04-09 400+ → 500+ up after 492 days in tier
- 2022-12-04 300+ → 400+ up after 31 days in tier
- 2022-11-03 400+ → 300+ 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).
-
LiteSpeed Cache 7M+ installs · 4.8★ · 3 shared tags A -
WP Fastest Cache – WordPress Cache Plugin 1M+ installs · 4.9★ · 3 shared tags A -
W3 Total Cache 900K+ installs · 4.4★ · 3 shared tags A -
Autoptimize 800K+ installs · 4.7★ · 3 shared tags A -
Aruba HiSpeed Cache 100K+ installs · 3.5★ · 3 shared tags B -
10Web Booster – Website speed optimization, Cache & Page Speed optimizer 60K+ installs · 4.6★ · 3 shared tags A
Embed this report card
Drop a live Pulse card for Speed up Contact Form 7 into a readme, a review or a deck. It updates itself.
<iframe src="https://plugins.wpmayor.com/embed/speed-up-contact-form-7" width="480" height="300" style="border:0" loading="lazy" title="Speed up Contact Form 7 — Plugin Pulse"></iframe> Speed up Contact Form 7: 300+ active installs, 4.7★ (3 reviews). Plugin Pulse (WP Mayor), as of 2026-11-02. https://plugins.wpmayor.com/plugin/speed-up-contact-form-7
Spotted a number that looks wrong? Report a data issue and we'll check it against the source.