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wp.org search vs our merit ranking: “card maker”

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 “card maker”, we agree with wp.org on the top plugin, and our order differs from theirs on 12 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

Scrumptious – Recipe Cards shows at wp.org #8 but places #23 on merit, a gap of 15 places. Its 400+ 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

Gutenberg Essential Blocks – Page Builder for Gutenberg Blocks & Patterns places #11 on merit, 4.9★ from 216 reviews, but shows at wp.org #21. A smaller install base keeps it further down the default search order than its quality signals alone would.

merit plugin wp.org
1 Quiz Maker by AYS 20K+ · 4.9★ (601) wp.org #1 2 WP Recipe Maker 50K+ · 5.0★ (356) wp.org #2 3 Form Maker by 10Web – Mobile-Friendly Drag & Drop Contact Form Builder 30K+ · 4.5★ (778) wp.org #4 ↑1 1 too low 4 Recipe Card Blocks Lite 10K+ · 4.8★ (20) wp.org #3 1 too high 5 Formidable Forms – Contact Form, Survey, Quiz, Payment, Calculator Form & Custom Form Builder 300K+ · 4.8★ (1388) wp.org #9 ↑1 4 too low 6 Survey Maker by AYS 5K+ · 4.8★ (79) wp.org #5 ↓1 1 too high 7 Poptin – Email Marketing Automation, Newsletter & Exit Pop Ups, Email Popups 20K+ · 4.9★ (701) wp.org #15 ↑2 8 too low 8 Divi Carousel Lite – Make Carousels for Divi 5 30K+ · 4.8★ (146) wp.org #14 6 too low 9 WPSSO Core – Complete Schema Markup and Meta Tags 4K+ · 4.6★ (306) wp.org #18 9 too low 10 Popup Box – Create Countdown, Coupon, Video, Contact Form Popups 50K+ · 4.6★ (82) wp.org #16 ↑3 6 too low 11 Gutenberg Essential Blocks – Page Builder for Gutenberg Blocks & Patterns 100K+ · 4.9★ (216) wp.org #21 ↑2 10 too low 12 AI Popup Builder & Popup Maker by OptiMonk 3K+ · 4.7★ (98) wp.org #13 1 too low 13 WP EasyCart: Shopping Cart and eCommerce Store 3K+ · 4.5★ (206) wp.org #22 ↓2 9 too low 14 Invisible Anti-Spam & CAPTCHA — reCAPTCHA Alternative for All Forms 4K+ · 4.8★ (50) wp.org #17 ↓2 3 too low 15 Create 6K+ · 4.3★ (25) wp.org #12 ↓1 3 too high 16 Getsitecontrol — Email Marketing Plugin | Popup Maker, Automations & Newsletters 1K+ · 4.1★ (23) wp.org #24 ↓2 8 too low 17 Riddle Quiz Maker – easily add quizzes with unlimited lead generation to your site 200+ · 4.6★ (9) wp.org #19 ↓3 2 too low 18 Tasty Recipes Lite – WordPress Recipe Card Plugin with Built-In Recipe Schema 2K+ · 5.0★ (2) wp.org #7 11 too high 19 Testimonial Customer Feedback 1K+ · 4.0★ (4) wp.org #10 ↓1 9 too high 20 Cloudi7 ID Card Generator 50+ · 0.0★ (0) wp.org #6 14 too high 21 Project Pages – Portfolio Template, Portfolio Maker, Work Context Explorer! 30+ · 5.0★ (4) wp.org #20 ↑1 1 too high 22 Acadlix LMS – AI Quiz Maker, Online Exam & Course Plugin for WordPress 40+ · 5.0★ (3) wp.org #23 1 too low 23 Scrumptious – Recipe Cards 400+ · 5.0★ (1) wp.org #8 15 too high 24 RsCards Maker – Greeting Cards, E-Cards, Christmas Cards & Holiday Wishes 10+ · 4.0★ (2) wp.org #11 ↑1 13 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.