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← Rankings

wp.org search vs our merit ranking: “active install”

wp.org orders by popularity, so a plugin a host bundled onto millions of sites, or a big-brand one that's slow and mediocre, can sit at the top. Our ranking is built to answer a different question: which of these is actually worth installing. How this works →

For “active install”, we agree with wp.org on the top plugin, and our order differs from theirs on 7 of the top 20. 5 plugins are pushed down for signals wp.org ignores: errors, a host-installed base, or removal risk.

wp.org search ranks on

Install count (uncapped), the raw star average, freshness, and support. Popularity dominates, so the biggest install base usually wins regardless of how it got there.

We add

A cap on the install boost, volume-weighted ratings, and signals wp.org can't see: whether it throws errors on current PHP, whether the install base is organic or host-pushed, and its risk of being pulled.

Ranked above its merit

Active Woot Products Tables for WooCommerce. 100% FREE shows at wp.org #10 but places #19 on merit, a gap of 9 places. Its 1K+ installs carry it up the search order; its 4.8★ average from 18 reviews, plus freshness and upkeep, place it lower on our volume-weighted scale.

Buried gem

Widgets for Google Reviews places #12 on merit, 4.9★ from 2667 reviews, but shows at wp.org #20. A smaller install base keeps it further down the default search order than its quality signals alone would.

merit plugin wp.org
1 UpdraftPlus: WP Backup & Migration Plugin 4M+ · 4.8★ (8706) wp.org #1 2 Online Active Users 2K+ · 4.7★ (51) wp.org #2 3 Rank Math SEO – AI SEO Tools to Dominate SEO Rankings 4M+ · 4.8★ (7519) wp.org #5 2 too low 4 Active Directory Integration / LDAP Integration 4K+ · 4.9★ (211) wp.org #4 5 W3 Total Cache 900K+ · 4.4★ (5420) wp.org #6 ↑1 1 too low 6 Custom Sidebars – Dynamic Sidebar Classic Widget Area Manager 100K+ · 4.7★ (1028) wp.org #8 ↑3 2 too low 7 Anti-Spam, Spam FireWall by CleanTalk 200K+ · 4.8★ (3221) wp.org #11 ↑2 4 too low 8 Next Active Directory Integration 2K+ · 4.8★ (16) wp.org #3 5 too high 9 MonsterInsights – Google Analytics Dashboard for WordPress (Website Stats Made Easy) 2M+ · 4.5★ (3157) wp.org #7 ↑2 2 too high 10 GiveWP – Donation Plugin and Fundraising Platform 100K+ · 4.6★ (708) wp.org #9 ↓1 1 too high 11 S SSH SFTP Updater Support 10K+ · 4.8★ (99) wp.org #13 ↑1 2 too low 12 Widgets for Google Reviews 1M+ · 4.9★ (2667) wp.org #20 8 too low 13 Burst Statistics – Simple WordPress Analytics (Google Analytics Alternative) 200K+ · 4.9★ (186) wp.org #17 ↓1 4 too low 14 Code Snippets 1M+ · 4.7★ (510) wp.org #12 ↓6 2 too high 15 SEOPress – AI SEO Plugin & On-site SEO 300K+ · 4.8★ (1267) wp.org #24 ↓4 9 too low 16 Jetpack – AI Agents & MCP, Security, Backup & Analytics 3M+ · 3.7★ (2408) wp.org #15 1 too high 17 Advanced Ads – Ad Manager & AdSense 90K+ · 4.9★ (1463) wp.org #22 5 too low 18 MailPoet – Newsletters, Email Marketing, and Automation 500K+ · 4.4★ (1435) wp.org #21 ↓3 3 too low 19 Active Woot Products Tables for WooCommerce. 100% FREE 1K+ · 4.8★ (18) wp.org #10 ↑2 9 too high 20 Backuply – Backup, Restore, Migrate and Clone 600K+ · 4.5★ (135) wp.org #18 2 too high 21 Cart Abandonment Recovery for WooCommerce – Recover Lost Sales with Automated Emails 300K+ · 4.8★ (626) wp.org #19 ↑3 2 too high 22 Skyboot Custom Icons for Elementor – Elementor Icons library – 14300+ Icons 200K+ · 5.0★ (22) wp.org #14 ↓4 8 too high 23 WP Migrate Lite – Migration Made Easy 200K+ · 4.2★ (318) wp.org #23 ↓4 24 WooCommerce Stripe Payment Gateway 700K+ · 3.1★ (237) wp.org #16 ↓1 8 too high

Merit ranking caps the install boost at 1M (wp.org leaves it uncapped), replaces the raw star average with a volume-weighted Bayesian score and a Wilson lower bound, and keeps wp.org's own freshness and compatibility decays. Method from the plugin-directory source; see Meta Trac #8298. Positions are tracked daily from the first visit to a keyword, so the small arrows show movement since tracking began.