Plugin Pulse Beta
← Rankings

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

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 “bad”, we agree with wp.org on the top plugin, and our order differs from theirs on 10 of the top 20.

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

EDH Bad Bots shows at wp.org #7 but places #24 on merit, a gap of 17 places. Its 50+ installs carry it up the search order; its 5.0★ average from 1 reviews, plus freshness and upkeep, place it lower on our volume-weighted scale.

Buried gem

Customer Reviews for WooCommerce places #11 on merit, 4.8★ from 1539 reviews, but shows at wp.org #22. A smaller install base keeps it further down the default search order than its quality signals alone would.

merit plugin wp.org
1 Blackhole for Bad Bots 30K+ · 4.7★ (148) wp.org #1 2 Wordfence Security – Firewall, Malware Scan, and Login Security 5M+ · 4.7★ (5039) wp.org #2 3 Really Simple Security – Simple and Performant Security (formerly Really Simple SSL) 3M+ · 4.9★ (8869) wp.org #4 1 too low 4 BBQ Firewall – Fast & Powerful Firewall Security 100K+ · 4.9★ (160) wp.org #3 1 too high 5 Kadence Security – Password, Two Factor Authentication, and Brute Force Protection 700K+ · 4.6★ (3992) wp.org #5 6 Jetpack Protect 100K+ · 4.6★ (123) wp.org #6 ↑1 7 Disable Gutenberg 500K+ · 5.0★ (735) wp.org #10 ↑1 3 too low 8 Media Cleaner: Delete Unused Images & Clean Your Media Library 90K+ · 4.6★ (779) wp.org #15 ↓1 7 too low 9 FluentSMTP – WP Mail SMTP Plugin with Amazon SES, SendGrid, Mailgun, Postmark, Cloudflare, toSend, Gmail and Any SMTP 700K+ · 4.8★ (410) wp.org #12 ↑1 3 too low 10 GA Google Analytics – Connect Google Analytics to WordPress 400K+ · 4.9★ (158) wp.org #13 ↑2 3 too low 11 Customer Reviews for WooCommerce 80K+ · 4.8★ (1539) wp.org #22 ↓5 11 too low 12 SecuPress with Simple SSL – Simple and Performant Security 40K+ · 4.1★ (106) wp.org #11 ↑1 1 too high 13 Defender Security – Malware Scanner, Login Security & Firewall 80K+ · 4.8★ (334) wp.org #21 ↓1 8 too low 14 Backuply – Backup, Restore, Migrate and Clone 600K+ · 4.5★ (135) wp.org #14 ↑7 15 ManageWP Worker 1M+ · 4.6★ (679) wp.org #18 3 too low 16 Security Ninja – WordPress Security & Firewall 7K+ · 4.7★ (101) wp.org #19 ↑3 3 too low 17 Banhammer – Monitor Site Traffic, Block Bad Users and Bots 1K+ · 4.4★ (19) wp.org #8 9 too high 18 Disable WP REST API 30K+ · 4.8★ (36) wp.org #17 ↑7 1 too high 19 Disable Media Sizes 10K+ · 5.0★ (23) wp.org #16 3 too high 20 Vigilant – 100% Free Security Suite: Firewall, 2FA, Login, Headers, Scanner… 3K+ · 5.0★ (24) wp.org #23 3 too low 21 Bot Traffic Shield – Block Bad Bots and Stop AI Bots Crawlers 800+ · 5.0★ (5) wp.org #9 ↑1 12 too high 22 Disable WP Sitemaps 10K+ · 5.0★ (10) wp.org #20 ↓1 2 too high 23 Disable Lazy Load 9K+ · 4.5★ (23) wp.org #24 1 too low 24 EDH Bad Bots 50+ · 5.0★ (1) wp.org #7 ↑2 17 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.