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

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 “ball”, we agree with wp.org on the top plugin, and our order differs from theirs on 6 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.

Ranked above its merit

Preloader Awesome – Page Loading Animation with Spinner & Gif shows at wp.org #18 but places #24 on merit, a gap of 6 places. Its 1K+ installs carry it up the search order; its 1.0★ average from 1 reviews, plus freshness and upkeep, place it lower on our volume-weighted scale.

merit plugin wp.org
1 Translate WordPress with Weglot 2.0 – Multilingual AI Translation 50K+ · 4.8★ (1940) wp.org #1 2 CP Media Player – Audio Player and Video Player 3K+ · 4.4★ (46) wp.org #2 3 Weather Effect 4K+ · 4.5★ (30) wp.org #3 4 Slider Hero with Video Background, Animation 3K+ · 4.8★ (34) wp.org #8 4 too low 5 QR Code Composer – Automatic QR code generation 3K+ · 4.2★ (9) wp.org #4 1 too high 6 Raffle Ticket Generator – Woocommerce 100+ · 4.3★ (9) wp.org #5 1 too high 7 Floating Buttons for WooCommerce 10+ · 5.0★ (7) wp.org #10 3 too low 8 Crystal Ball Insights 10+ · 5.0★ (7) wp.org #9 1 too low 9 WP Preloader 100+ · 4.0★ (4) wp.org #7 2 too high 10 Fantasy Football 20+ · 4.3★ (6) wp.org #14 4 too low 11 Autobute – Auto Image Alt Text, Title & Caption for Image SEO 200+ · 5.0★ (1) wp.org #6 5 too high 12 Tabellen von faustball.com 30+ · 0.0★ (0) wp.org #11 1 too high 13 Pong Block 10+ · 0.0★ (0) wp.org #12 1 too high 14 CardPrices.io Card Links — · 0.0★ (0) wp.org #15 1 too low 15 Pizza2Calc Dough Calculator — · 0.0★ (0) wp.org #16 ↓1 1 too low 16 Night Code Lab QR Studio — · 5.0★ (1) wp.org #13 3 too high 17 SchoolSlots — · 0.0★ (0) wp.org #17 18 LeadArcade — · 0.0★ (0) wp.org #19 ↓2 1 too low 19 Tecnología Geek Loterías en Vivo — · 0.0★ (0) wp.org #20 ↓2 1 too low 20 WP Mouse Custom Cursor 200+ · 4.3★ (3) wp.org #23 ↓2 3 too low 21 Gobbert SVG Studio — · 0.0★ (0) wp.org #21 ↓2 22 Impress Living Backgrounds — · 0.0★ (0) wp.org #22 ↓2 23 HoweScape Unity3d WebGL 100+ · 3.3★ (4) wp.org #24 ↓2 1 too low 24 Preloader Awesome – Page Loading Animation with Spinner & Gif 1K+ · 1.0★ (1) wp.org #18 ↓2 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.