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

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 “budgeting”, we and wp.org disagree on the top plugin, and our order differs from theirs on 2 of the top 18.

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.

merit plugin wp.org
1 AJ Agent Crawl Optimizer – AI Readiness Scanner & llms.txt for WordPress 30+ · 5.0★ (3) wp.org #2 1 too low 2 Pakistan Tax Calculator 10+ · 3.0★ (2) wp.org #1 1 too high 3 PalmsTrack – WordPress Costs & Subscriptions Tracker 10+ · 5.0★ (2) wp.org #3 4 DropAvif Image Optimizer – Convert WebP & AVIF | Compress Images 80+ · 5.0★ (4) wp.org #12 8 too low 5 Build a House — · 0.0★ (0) wp.org #4 1 too high 6 AxG AI Site Assistant — · 0.0★ (0) wp.org #5 1 too high 7 AxG AI Store Sales & Support Assistant for Woo — · 0.0★ (0) wp.org #6 1 too high 8 PayPal Payment for WooCommerce 50+ · 5.0★ (3) wp.org #14 6 too low 9 M MksDdn Migrate Content 10+ · 0.0★ (0) wp.org #7 2 too high 10 Ultimate Business Dashboard — · 0.0★ (0) wp.org #8 2 too high 11 Ovesio – Ecommerce Intelligence for WooCommerce — · 0.0★ (0) wp.org #9 2 too high 12 solea — · 0.0★ (0) wp.org #10 2 too high 13 LP Software – Schema & Structured Data Optimization — · 0.0★ (0) wp.org #11 2 too high 14 Attendant – Free AI Site Search & Chatbot 100+ · 0.0★ (0) wp.org #13 1 too high 15 GemBoards – Kanban Project Management 10+ · 0.0★ (0) wp.org #15 16 AutoSyncPress CRMBridge Sync for Zoho CRM — · 0.0★ (0) wp.org #16 ↓1 17 Omninox Site Toolkit — · 0.0★ (0) wp.org #17 18 PerfBar — · 5.0★ (1) wp.org #18 ↓2

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.