Text Hover

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.

Not enough tracked days yet to call a direction. Momentum needs at least three keywords measured a week or more apart.

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.

2 searches this plugin appeared in over the last 90 days, 1 listed. 1 left out as unrelated or noise (years, numbers, stray words). 5 of its tags aren't in the top 24 for their own search.

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 · 87% run the current release. Green is the current release; a big slice on older versions is a user base that has stopped updating.

Crossed into this band 4 months ago; a band this size takes about a year or more to cross, which places it about 65% of the way through.

1. ★★★★★ lshenefield

   5.0y ago

   I’m using this for a pretty scientific site where definitions of terms need to be clear to the reader as they go through the paragraphs. It’s easy to use and having the definition list in one place creates quick updates. No going to each phrase in a page. You just do it all at once in the setting. I had a hard time finding the CSS for the hover box itself, but did find it down below in the FAQ on the WP plugin page. Now the box matches the rest of the site. Thank you!

   Read on wp.org ↗
2. ★★★★★ CLRD

   6.5y ago

   Simple to use and yet very effective. Note: In some languages, blank spaces (” “) are not used for word separation (i.e. SomeLanguagesHaveNoSpacesInBetween) like chinese, japanese, etc. Therefore in those situations it won’t work as it thinks “SomeLanguagesHaveNoSpacesInBetween” is one word. As a work around, you need to space out the word so this plugin works. Lets’ say you want to have the hover text just for “have”, you’ll need to append and prepend a space (” “) like so: “SomeLanguages Have NoSpacesInBetween”. An aesthetic sacrifice, but does the job.

   Read on wp.org ↗
3. ★★★★★ thebeautybb

   7.2y ago

   Works perfectly and does what it says it will do: add text hover/tooltip functionality. This plugin is easy to use and I’ve become a fan of all the plugins by this author (Scott Reilly) that I’ve tried so far! Thanks for creating so many great plugins!

   Read on wp.org ↗
4. ★★★★★ kenneth.vogt

   9.6y ago

   No short codes are needed and it works on all your preexisting posts and pages. It is stupid simple.

   Read on wp.org ↗
5. ★★★★★ lullabyman

   9.7y ago

   So … totally cool, and can I just say it’s amazing that this seems to be the only plugin that adds hover text to text? Image hovers just seem dumb to me … because they cover the image. That’s what a caption is for. Anywho if the yellow background made you want to puke, like it did me try this hack (newbies: go to this plug-in, click “edit”, then search for “new-text”, add this to the beginning of that line: “//” [but without the quotes] to make it just a comment) and replace the $new-text command with this: $new_text = “<span style='” . “color:#333; border-bottom: 1px dotted #000; cursor: help;” . “‘ . title='” . esc_attr( addcslashes( $hover_text, ‘\\$’ ) ) . “‘>\\1</span>”; now you might have to retype the single and double quotes to get it work … wordpress sometimes converts those to the left and right quotes which will kill your code.

   Read on wp.org ↗
6. ★★★★★ hidalgm2

   11.3y ago

   I really like it, helps keep the page decluttered

   Read on wp.org ↗
7. ★★★★★ Leto

   11.5y ago

   I have found this to be a very useful plugin that has transformed my site. My site is dedicated to learning the 2000+ Japanese characters that are needed to read Japanese, and I use the plugin to provide users with on-the-fly translation of kanji into the English keyword used to remember that kanji. A demo of the plugin and a post about my use of it is here… http://kanjisketchpad.com/kanji-keyword-hover-text-and-shortcuts/ It took me some time to configure the plugin to do exactly what I wanted, which is why I have not given it 5 stars, but the final result is worth 5 stars. The configuration steps involved: 1) modding the css for the acronym class to provide a more subtle shadow effect 2) modding the tooltip appearance 3) editing the plugin php file directly to do some necessary replacements in the text so that matches could be detected at the end of paragraphs (see the support thread for a fix). One more mod is still needed to allow matches to be detected when the text to be replaced is next to a <tag>. I know the author is working on this. For now I have to remember to put spaces around the kanji I want matched. The author has been helpful in the support forum, though I managed to fix the issues myself. The plugin could be improved if the backend provided custom css options with examples, and if the ‘ignore’ characters could be maintained as a list without editing the php file directly. For people with no coding experience, it may end up being a little tricky to get everything just how you want it, but for anyone with a little php or css knowledge, the plugin can be a great addition to a site.

   Read on wp.org ↗
8. ★★★★★ editortooltimetuesday

   11.7y ago

   Does what it says and easy to manage. The best part is that it works globally across your site, and doesn’t clutter up your text with shortcode. Needs to include the < and > characters in its character ignore list, though. Otherwise, code tags touching the target word in the text editor cause the tooltips to not show up for that word. I would consider that a bug. For example, with the following code ORT won’t get a tooltip, but AFR will. <li style="text-align: justify;"><strong>ORT / AFR Trend</strong> – Displays the ORT rolling Annualized Failure Rate trend by fiscal workweek.</li> Less on the bug side and more on the feature request side, I think the author should also consider adding the ( and ) characters to the ignore list, as the plugin won’t work on target words in brackets, either. Better yet, how about a customizable ignore list of characters that we can add to, ourselves. Like I said, almost perfect. I would highly recommend it as a nice, simple way to add tooltips to your text. Thank you to the author for developing this free plugin.

   Read on wp.org ↗

The 1 disclosed vulnerability is patched in the current version (4.2). Sites still on an older version should update.

1. Patched Medium · 5.5 Text Hover <= 4.1 - Admin+ Stored Cross-Site Scripting ↗
   2022-04-09 CVE-2022-0737 Improper Neutralization of Input During Web Page Generation Affects <= 4.1 Patched in 4.2

Automated install-time checks, tested on PHP 7.4.8 · WP 5.9.2

Translated into 3 languages, 2 at 90% or more

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. 2026-06-27 2K+ → 1K+ down after 1 days in tier
2. 2026-06-26 1K+ → 2K+ up after 5 days in tier
3. 2026-06-21 2K+ → 1K+ down after 28 days in tier
4. 2026-05-24 1K+ → 2K+ up after 2 days in tier
5. 2026-05-22 2K+ → 1K+ down after 797 days in tier
6. 2024-03-16 3K+ → 2K+ down after 5 days in tier
7. 2024-03-11 2K+ → 3K+ up after 1 days in tier
8. 2024-03-10 3K+ → 2K+ down after 1 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).

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Drop a live Pulse card for Text Hover into a readme, a review or a deck. It updates itself.

Text Hover: 1K+ active installs, 4.5★ (17 reviews). Plugin Pulse (WP Mayor), as of 2026-11-01. https://plugins.wpmayor.com/plugin/text-hover