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← Rankings

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

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 “battle”, 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 the install base is organic or host-pushed, and its risk of being pulled.

Ranked above its merit

Layouts for Divi shows at wp.org #7 but places #12 on merit, a gap of 5 places. Its 1K+ installs carry it up the search order; its 5.0★ average from 5 reviews, plus freshness and upkeep, place it lower on our volume-weighted scale.

Buried gem

CM Tooltip Glossary places #7 on merit, 4.3★ from 157 reviews, but shows at wp.org #14. A smaller install base keeps it further down the default search order than its quality signals alone would.

merit plugin wp.org
1 WP Mail SMTP by WPForms – SMTP for Reliable Email Delivery with Gmail, Outlook, Amazon SES, Brevo, Other SMTP & More 4M+ · 4.8★ (5209) wp.org #1 2 Broken Link Checker 500K+ · 3.8★ (605) wp.org #2 3 SEOPress – AI SEO Plugin & On-site SEO 300K+ · 4.8★ (1268) wp.org #4 ↓1 1 too low 4 Powered Cache – Caching and Optimization for WordPress – Easily Improve PageSpeed & Web Vitals Score 3K+ · 4.8★ (58) wp.org #5 ↑1 1 too low 5 A Action Scheduler 20K+ · 3.5★ (13) wp.org #3 ↑1 2 too high 6 iQ Block Country 20K+ · 3.9★ (166) wp.org #11 ↓1 5 too low 7 CM Tooltip Glossary 7K+ · 4.3★ (157) wp.org #14 7 too low 8 DietPress 2K+ · 5.0★ (38) wp.org #13 ↓2 5 too low 9 Angie – Agentic AI 100K+ · 3.3★ (20) wp.org #6 ↓1 3 too high 10 CoCart – Headless REST API for WooCommerce 900+ · 4.9★ (21) wp.org #12 2 too low 11 Caddy – WooCommerce Side Cart & Free Shipping Bar 3K+ · 3.9★ (20) wp.org #9 2 too high 12 Layouts for Divi 1K+ · 5.0★ (5) wp.org #7 5 too high 13 WPC Badge Management for WooCommerce 2K+ · 4.5★ (8) wp.org #8 5 too high 14 Simple Disable XML-RPC 1K+ · 5.0★ (5) wp.org #10 4 too high 15 CM Download Manager – Organize, Protect & Share Files in WordPress 100+ · 3.9★ (43) wp.org #23 ↓2 8 too low 16 wiseCampaign – WooCommerce Flash Sale, Countdown Timer, Discount Rules & Sales Notification 40+ · 5.0★ (6) wp.org #18 ↓2 2 too low 17 Advanced Cron Scheduler for WordPress 100+ · 5.0★ (5) wp.org #22 ↓3 5 too low 18 Magic Copy for Elementor – Cross Domain Copy Paste & Page Duplicator 20+ · 5.0★ (2) wp.org #20 2 too low 19 NEO Bootstrap Carousel 30+ · 4.0★ (3) wp.org #19 ↓2 20 Lexiata XSlider 600+ · 0.0★ (0) wp.org #15 ↓2 5 too high 21 Mikhailkyrychenko Discount Battle Game for WooCommerce — · 0.0★ (0) wp.org #16 5 too high 22 Mail Baby SMTP 500+ · 0.0★ (0) wp.org #17 ↓2 5 too high 23 Dropdown Search Option for Contact Form 7 300+ · 0.0★ (0) wp.org #21 ↓3 2 too high 24 DMValdez Clean Post Toolkit 40+ · 0.0★ (0) wp.org #24

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.