Plugin Pulse Beta
← Rankings

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

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 “broken”, we agree with wp.org on the top plugin, and our order differs from theirs on 14 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

Replace Broken Images shows at wp.org #5 but places #17 on merit, a gap of 12 places. Its 1K+ installs carry it up the search order; its 4.5★ average from 4 reviews, plus freshness and upkeep, place it lower on our volume-weighted scale.

Buried gem

SEOPress – AI SEO Plugin & On-site SEO places #8 on merit, 4.8★ from 1267 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 Broken Link Checker 500K+ · 3.8★ (605) wp.org #1 2 Broken Link Checker by AIOSEO – Find & Fix Broken Internal, External & Video Links 200K+ · 3.8★ (87) wp.org #2 3 Rank Math SEO – AI SEO Tools to Dominate SEO Rankings 4M+ · 4.8★ (7519) wp.org #7 4 too low 4 UpdraftPlus: WP Backup & Migration Plugin 4M+ · 4.8★ (8706) wp.org #8 4 too low 5 Broken Link Notifier 1K+ · 4.8★ (14) wp.org #3 2 too high 6 Media Cleaner: Delete Unused Images & Clean Your Media Library 90K+ · 4.6★ (779) wp.org #12 6 too low 7 404 to 301 – Redirect Manager, 301 Redirection, 404 Error Logs & 404 Monitoring 100K+ · 4.7★ (321) wp.org #11 4 too low 8 SEOPress – AI SEO Plugin & On-site SEO 300K+ · 4.8★ (1267) wp.org #20 ↑3 12 too low 9 All in One SEO – AI SEO Plugin to Boost SEO Rankings & Traffic (Schema, Local SEO, Sitemap & SEO Insights) 2M+ · 4.7★ (5231) wp.org #15 ↑1 6 too low 10 All 404 Redirect to Homepage 200K+ · 4.1★ (96) wp.org #13 ↑1 3 too low 11 WP Super Cache 1M+ · 4.3★ (1346) wp.org #19 ↑5 8 too low 12 Cyrlitera – Transliteration of Links and File Names 40K+ · 4.6★ (62) wp.org #14 ↑1 2 too low 13 FluentSMTP – WP Mail SMTP Plugin with Amazon SES, SendGrid, Mailgun, Postmark, Cloudflare, toSend, Gmail and Any SMTP 700K+ · 4.8★ (410) wp.org #21 8 too low 14 Check for Broken Links – Broken Link Checker & SEO Suite 1K+ · 4.0★ (6) wp.org #4 10 too high 15 Redirect 404 to Homepage 60K+ · 4.6★ (24) wp.org #16 ↑3 1 too low 16 Hide Broken Shortcodes 400+ · 4.5★ (10) wp.org #9 7 too high 17 Replace Broken Images 1K+ · 4.5★ (4) wp.org #5 12 too high 18 Remove Broken Images 700+ · 4.0★ (4) wp.org #6 12 too high 19 Cyr to Lat Reloaded – Transliteration of Links and File Names 30K+ · 4.5★ (15) wp.org #22 3 too low 20 Codesala Broken Link Fixer 30+ · 0.0★ (0) wp.org #18 2 too high 21 404 Image Redirection (Replace Broken Images) 500+ · 3.5★ (2) wp.org #10 11 too high 22 Broken Image Checker (Find Internal or External Broken Images) 300+ · 5.0★ (1) wp.org #17 5 too high 23 Archivarix Broken Links Recovery 200+ · 4.0★ (1) wp.org #23 24 Broken Image Fallback 10+ · 5.0★ (1) 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.