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wp.org search vs our merit ranking: “astro”

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 “astro”, we and wp.org disagree on the top plugin, and our order differs from theirs on 5 of the top 20. 3 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.

H

Ranked above its merit

Horoscopen (NL) – Astro Media shows at wp.org #18 but places #24 on merit, a gap of 6 places. Its 10+ installs carry it up the search order; its 0.0★ average from 0 reviews, plus freshness and upkeep, place it lower on our volume-weighted scale.

merit plugin wp.org
1 WPGraphQL 30K+ · 4.9★ (48) wp.org #2 1 too low 2 Divine Astro 100+ · 4.6★ (11) wp.org #1 1 too high 3 Code Block Pro – Beautiful Syntax Highlighting 10K+ · 4.8★ (50) wp.org #5 2 too low 4 CoCart – Headless REST API for WooCommerce 900+ · 4.9★ (21) wp.org #4 5 Vireo Analytics – Cookieless WordPress Stats & Google Analytics Alternative 20+ · 5.0★ (6) wp.org #8 3 too low 6 A Astro API By Synilogic 40+ · 0.0★ (0) wp.org #3 3 too high 7 Astro Booking Engine 10+ · 0.0★ (0) wp.org #6 1 too high 8 VedIntel Astro Widgets — · 0.0★ (0) wp.org #9 1 too low 9 tsParticles WP Block 100+ · 0.0★ (0) wp.org #10 1 too low 10 Astro Sticky Buttons 10+ · 0.0★ (0) wp.org #7 3 too high 11 A Astro Zodiac Widget — · 0.0★ (0) wp.org #11 12 Astro Hide Unpublished Post Types From Menu — · 0.0★ (0) wp.org #12 13 I Invizo Headless Mode 30+ · 0.0★ (0) wp.org #14 ↑2 1 too low 14 Hatch Connect – Astro Headless for Cloudflare — · 0.0★ (0) wp.org #15 1 too low 15 Headless Login Guard — · 5.0★ (1) wp.org #13 2 too high 16 Corsen Context 100+ · 0.0★ (0) wp.org #17 ↓2 1 too low 17 NextSite Exporter 10+ · 0.0★ (0) wp.org #19 2 too low 18 StaticQ Headless — · 0.0★ (0) wp.org #20 ↓2 2 too low 19 Smooth API Accelerator — · 5.0★ (1) wp.org #16 ↓2 3 too high 20 CosmyDay Astrology Widgets — · 0.0★ (0) wp.org #21 ↓2 1 too low 21 H HWConnector Lite – Headless REST API & CORS — · 0.0★ (0) wp.org #22 ↓2 1 too low 22 Headless Portfolio CMS — · 0.0★ (0) wp.org #23 ↓2 1 too low 23 Contentrain Bridge – Export to Markdown, JSON & Git — · 0.0★ (0) wp.org #24 1 too low 24 H Horoscopen (NL) – Astro Media 10+ · 0.0★ (0) wp.org #18 ↓1 6 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.