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← Rankings

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

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 “citations”, we and wp.org disagree on the top plugin, and our order differs from theirs on 15 of the top 20. 1 plugin is 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

TheLaTeXLab – Citations & Bibliography shows at wp.org #3 but places #13 on merit, a gap of 10 places. Its 10+ 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

Getwid – Gutenberg Blocks places #6 on merit, 4.7★ from 115 reviews, but shows at wp.org #17. A smaller install base keeps it further down the default search order than its quality signals alone would.

merit plugin wp.org
1 Modern Footnotes 6K+ · 4.8★ (32) wp.org #2 1 too low 2 Zotpress 2K+ · 4.9★ (66) wp.org #5 3 too low 3 Footnotes Made Easy 2K+ · 4.6★ (40) wp.org #6 3 too low 4 Reference Manager for WordPress with Footnotes, Citations, Bibliographies, Tooltips and Glossary 60+ · 5.0★ (2) wp.org #1 3 too high 5 LexonRank: AI Link Building, Free Backlinks, GEO & SEO Automation 800+ · 4.1★ (31) wp.org #7 2 too low 6 Getwid – Gutenberg Blocks 50K+ · 4.7★ (115) wp.org #17 ↓2 11 too low 7 CM Footnotes – Boost your content’s credibility with footnotes, citations, and bibliography 100+ · 4.2★ (6) wp.org #4 3 too high 8 ThinkRank SEO – AI SEO Plugin for SEO & Google Search Console 20K+ · 4.9★ (36) wp.org #15 7 too low 9 Known Agents – Track AI Bots and Crawlers, Block Scrapers, Analyze LLM Referral Traffic 1K+ · 4.8★ (6) wp.org #9 10 TrueRanker 400+ · 4.6★ (9) wp.org #10 11 AEO God Mode – AI Search Visibility 300+ · 5.0★ (4) wp.org #8 3 too high 12 Content Egg – Affiliate Product Importer & Price Comparison 10K+ · 3.9★ (56) wp.org #23 ↓4 11 too low 13 TheLaTeXLab – Citations & Bibliography 10+ · 5.0★ (1) wp.org #3 10 too high 14 PressForward 100+ · 4.6★ (11) wp.org #21 ↓1 7 too low 15 LaTeX2HTML 200+ · 4.8★ (9) wp.org #19 ↓2 4 too low 16 Hyve Lite – AI Chatbot Trained on WordPress Posts, Pages, Products & More with ChatGPT 7K+ · 4.3★ (6) wp.org #24 8 too low 17 QuoteFrameShare – Beautiful Blockquotes with Citation, Copy & Social Share 20+ · 5.0★ (2) wp.org #12 ↓1 5 too high 18 Add LinkedIn Insight Tag for LinkedIn Ads 4K+ · 3.3★ (4) wp.org #14 ↓2 4 too high 19 Cite This Article – Author Box & Citation 10+ · 5.0★ (1) wp.org #11 8 too high 20 CitePress – Automatic Citation Generator 50+ · 0.0★ (0) wp.org #16 ↓2 4 too high 21 Outrank 1K+ · 5.0★ (1) wp.org #13 8 too high 22 EZY.ai – AEO & AI SEO for ChatGPT, Claude & Gemini 100+ · 3.0★ (4) wp.org #20 ↓2 2 too high 23 Awesome FAQ – answer questions before customers ask 1K+ · 5.0★ (1) wp.org #18 ↓2 5 too high 24 Iris AI – AI Homepage, Chatbot & Site Assistant 40+ · 5.0★ (1) wp.org #22 ↓1 2 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.