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wp.org search vs our merit ranking: “confirm email address”

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 “confirm email address”, we agree with wp.org 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 the install base is organic or host-pushed, and its risk of being pulled.

Ranked above its merit

Change Administrator Email Address shows at wp.org #11 but places #22 on merit, a gap of 11 places. Its 600+ 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

Checkout Field Editor (Checkout Manager) for WooCommerce places #8 on merit, 4.9★ from 1,056 reviews, but shows at wp.org #15. A smaller install base keeps it further down the default search order than its quality signals alone would.

How this rank is calculated

Each plugin's merit score multiplies these inputs together: how recently it was updated, how current its "tested up to" WordPress version is, its install base (log scale, capped at 10 million), its support thread resolution rate, and a rating score. The rating score weights the star average by review volume against a sitewide prior, then scales it by the lower bound of the share of 4 and 5 star reviews. A plugin with 3.7 stars from tens of thousands of reviews can still outscore a 4.9 with a few dozen, because the small sample carries less certainty.

A health factor between 0.4 and 1.15 then adjusts that score for what wp.org's search can't see: PHP fatals or failed activations on a test install, PHP and WordPress compatibility, memory and page-speed footprint, suspicious review patterns, closure risk, and a large install base with very few reviews. Clean, adopted plugins earn a small lift.

A keyword ranking starts from wp.org's search order for the term, weighting each position by 1 divided by its place, then applies the merit correction and health factor above. Relevance to the keyword stays in the result, so the order can differ from the all-categories list on /best, which scores plugins with no search term.

Hover a row to see the main reason for its position.

merit plugin wp.org
1 Post SMTP – Complete Email Delivery and SMTP Solution with Email Logs, Alerts, Backup SMTP & Mobile App 300K+ · 4.7★ (528) wp.org #1 2 Contact Form Email 8K+ · 4.3★ (102) wp.org #3 wp.org ranks it 1 place below merit 3 Mailonix – Email Template Customizer for WooCommerce 20K+ · 4.6★ (105) wp.org #4 wp.org ranks it 1 place below merit 4 FluentSMTP – WP Mail SMTP Plugin with Amazon SES, SendGrid, Mailgun, Postmark, Cloudflare, toSend, Gmail and Any SMTP 700K+ · 4.8★ (412) wp.org #5 wp.org ranks it 1 place below merit 5 Autocomplete Google Address 2K+ · 4.0★ (25) wp.org #2 wp.org ranks it 3 places above merit 6 Customize WordPress Emails and Alerts – Better Notifications for WP 30K+ · 4.8★ (184) wp.org #8 ↑1 wp.org ranks it 2 places below merit 7 Easy WP SMTP – WordPress SMTP and Email Logs: Gmail SMTP, Office 365, Outlook, Custom SMTP, and more 500K+ · 4.6★ (709) wp.org #9 ↑1 wp.org ranks it 2 places below merit 8 Checkout Field Editor (Checkout Manager) for WooCommerce 400K+ · 4.9★ (1,056) wp.org #15 ↓2 wp.org ranks it 7 places below merit 9 Ninja Forms – Contact Form Builder with Calculators, Quizzes, Signatures & AI Form Builder 500K+ · 4.4★ (1,398) wp.org #13 ↑2 wp.org ranks it 4 places below merit 10 WP Rollback – Rollback Plugins and Themes 200K+ · 4.9★ (215) wp.org #14 wp.org ranks it 4 places below merit 11 Email Marketing Plugin – WP Email Capture 1K+ · 4.3★ (19) wp.org #6 wp.org ranks it 5 places above merit 12 Email Tracker 800+ · 4.4★ (21) wp.org #7 wp.org ranks it 5 places above merit 13 Fluent Forms – Customizable Contact Forms, Survey, Quiz, & Conversational Form Builder 800K+ · 4.8★ (808) wp.org #20 ↓2 wp.org ranks it 7 places below merit 14 Five Star Restaurant Reservations – WordPress Booking Plugin 10K+ · 4.7★ (211) wp.org #22 wp.org ranks it 8 places below merit 15 Customer Email Verification for WooCommerce 8K+ · 4.8★ (47) wp.org #17 ↑1 wp.org ranks it 2 places below merit 16 Customer Email Verification for WooCommerce – OTP Verification, Block Fake Signups 2K+ · 4.2★ (20) wp.org #12 ↓4 wp.org ranks it 4 places above merit 17 MailerPress – Email Marketing, Newsletter, Email Automation & WooCommerce Emails 1K+ · 5.0★ (17) wp.org #16 ↑1 wp.org ranks it 1 place above merit 18 Clearout Email Validator – Real-Time Email Verification on WordPress Forms 500+ · 4.2★ (13) wp.org #10 ↑1 wp.org ranks it 8 places above merit 19 weMail – Email Marketing, Newsletters Builder & Email Automations for WooCommerce 10K+ · 4.0★ (31) wp.org #18 wp.org ranks it 1 place above merit 20 DeBounce Email Validator 300+ · 3.9★ (16) wp.org #21 wp.org ranks it 1 place below merit 21 Address Validation and Autocomplete for WooCommerce | Addressfinder 900+ · 4.3★ (6) wp.org #23 ↓1 wp.org ranks it 2 places below merit 22 Change Administrator Email Address 600+ · 5.0★ (1) wp.org #11 ↑1 wp.org ranks it 11 places above merit 23 Registration Email Blocker 100+ · 5.0★ (1) wp.org #19 wp.org ranks it 4 places above merit 24 Advanced Email Domain Restriction 100+ · 5.0★ (1) wp.org #24 ↓1

Merit ranking caps the install boost at 10M (wp.org leaves it uncapped), replaces the raw star average with a volume-weighted 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.