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

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 “cite”, we and wp.org disagree on the top plugin, and our order differs from theirs on 11 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

Add TinyMCE Blockquote Cite shows at wp.org #8 but places #16 on merit, a gap of 8 places. Its 10+ installs carry it up the search order; its 0.0★ average from 0 reviews, plus freshness and upkeep, place it lower on our volume-weighted scale.

merit plugin wp.org
1 GEO Plugin by Squirrly SEO 30K+ · 4.6★ (683) wp.org #3 ↓1 2 too low 2 GetGenie – AI SEO Assistant & Content Writer with Keyword Research, AEO & GEO 70K+ · 4.8★ (119) wp.org #4 ↑3 2 too low 3 WP-Yomigana 2K+ · 5.0★ (3) wp.org #1 2 too high 4 Content Egg – Affiliate Product Importer & Price Comparison 10K+ · 3.9★ (56) wp.org #5 ↑1 1 too low 5 Footnotes Made Easy 2K+ · 4.6★ (40) wp.org #10 ↑1 5 too low 6 Visibility – Lightweight SEO, AEO and GEO for Search and AI 600+ · 5.0★ (6) wp.org #9 ↑1 3 too low 7 OGEEAT 200+ · 5.0★ (7) wp.org #7 ↓4 8 Cite This Article – Author Box & Citation 10+ · 5.0★ (1) wp.org #2 ↑10 6 too high 9 Nexter Extension – Security, Performance, Code Snippets & Site Toolkit 10K+ · 4.7★ (13) wp.org #18 ↓2 9 too low 10 TrueRanker 400+ · 4.6★ (9) wp.org #15 ↓2 5 too low 11 Reference Manager for WordPress with Footnotes, Citations, Bibliographies, Tooltips and Glossary 60+ · 5.0★ (2) wp.org #6 ↓2 5 too high 12 Hyve Lite – AI Chatbot Trained on WordPress Posts, Pages, Products & More with ChatGPT 7K+ · 4.3★ (6) wp.org #14 ↑3 2 too low 13 LovedByAI – GEO (Generative Engine Optimization) & AI SEO Plugin: AEO, llms.txt 1K+ · 4.4★ (5) wp.org #12 ↓7 1 too high 14 StoreAgent – WooCommerce AI Chatbot, AI Agent & WooCommerce MCP Server 600+ · 5.0★ (5) wp.org #17 3 too low 15 Odyssey LLMS 300+ · 5.0★ (2) wp.org #11 ↑3 4 too high 16 Add TinyMCE Blockquote Cite 10+ · 0.0★ (0) wp.org #8 ↑1 8 too high 17 Ordessa – FAQ & Accordion Block with Bulk Add 100+ · 5.0★ (2) wp.org #13 ↑7 4 too high 18 Simple Attribution 30+ · 4.0★ (4) wp.org #19 1 too low 19 S Safe Report Comments 100+ · 3.0★ (7) wp.org #16 ↑2 3 too high 20 TNC FlipBook 3D – PDF Flipbook, 3D Flipbook, PDF Viewer, PDF Embedder 400+ · 5.0★ (2) wp.org #21 ↑2 1 too low 21 H Hybrid Cache Maintenance & CSS Healer for Elementor 60+ · 0.0★ (0) wp.org #20 ↑1 1 too high 22 FocusWeb AI Visibility 20+ · 0.0★ (0) wp.org #23 1 too low 23 CitedSEO 10+ · 5.0★ (1) wp.org #22 1 too high 24 Connect Claude & ChatGPT to WordPress (MCP) – AI SEO + AEO Score 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.