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wp.org search vs our merit ranking: “crawler log”

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 “crawler log”, we agree with wp.org on the top plugin, and our order differs from theirs on 13 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

Crawler Record shows at wp.org #5 but places #22 on merit, a gap of 17 places. Its 100+ 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

Better Robots.txt – AI-Ready Crawl Control & Bot Governance places #11 on merit, 4.5★ from 102 reviews, but shows at wp.org #20. A smaller install base keeps it further down the default search order than its quality signals alone would.

merit plugin wp.org
1 LiteSpeed Cache 7M+ · 4.8★ (2778) wp.org #1 ↑1 2 Wordfence Security – Firewall, Malware Scan, and Login Security 5M+ · 4.7★ (5040) wp.org #2 ↓1 3 Anti-Spam, Spam FireWall by CleanTalk 200K+ · 4.8★ (3221) wp.org #3 4 Really Simple Security – Simple and Performant Security (formerly Really Simple SSL) 3M+ · 4.9★ (8869) wp.org #7 ↑2 3 too low 5 404 to 301 – Redirect Manager, 301 Redirection, 404 Error Logs & 404 Monitoring 100K+ · 4.7★ (321) wp.org #6 ↓1 1 too low 6 NinjaFirewall (WP Edition) – Advanced Security Plugin and Firewall 100K+ · 4.9★ (220) wp.org #11 ↑2 5 too low 7 Hide My WP Ghost – Security & Firewall 100K+ · 4.5★ (373) wp.org #12 5 too low 8 Booter – Bots & Crawlers Manager 7K+ · 4.7★ (12) wp.org #4 4 too high 9 Defender Security – Malware Scanner, Login Security & Firewall 80K+ · 4.8★ (334) wp.org #17 ↑4 8 too low 10 SilentShield – Captcha & Anti-Spam for WordPress (CF7, WPForms, Elementor, WooCommerce) 10K+ · 4.7★ (24) wp.org #13 ↑1 3 too low 11 Better Robots.txt – AI-Ready Crawl Control & Bot Governance 5K+ · 4.5★ (102) wp.org #20 ↓2 9 too low 12 VigIA – AI Visibility, Analytics & Control 2K+ · 5.0★ (19) wp.org #14 2 too low 13 My Private Site – Make Your Whole Site Private, Force Login & Block Registration Spam 10K+ · 4.5★ (82) wp.org #22 9 too low 14 CrawlWP SEO – Complete WordPress SEO Plugin with AI, Indexing & Search Performance 30K+ · 4.7★ (62) wp.org #23 ↑1 9 too low 15 Bot Traffic Shield – Block Bad Bots and Stop AI Bots Crawlers 900+ · 5.0★ (5) wp.org #9 ↑1 6 too high 16 Advanced IP Blocker 3K+ · 4.9★ (27) wp.org #24 8 too low 17 Atlant Security 800+ · 5.0★ (8) wp.org #15 ↑1 2 too high 18 WPEPP – Essential Security, Password Protect & Login Page Customizer 3K+ · 4.1★ (19) wp.org #21 ↑3 3 too low 19 AEO God Mode – AI Search Visibility 300+ · 5.0★ (4) wp.org #16 ↑1 3 too high 20 Warmer – Cache Warmer and Cache Preload Crawler 80+ · 4.3★ (8) wp.org #18 ↑2 2 too high 21 Log-Hero.com Plugin 40+ · 4.5★ (2) wp.org #10 ↑2 11 too high 22 Crawler Record 100+ · 5.0★ (1) wp.org #5 ↑1 17 too high 23 Forge AI Bot Log – Block AI Bots, Crawler Detection & Verification 90+ · 5.0★ (1) wp.org #8 ↓1 15 too high 24 LLM Bot Tracker – AI Crawler Detection & Analytics 1K+ · 3.0★ (2) wp.org #19 ↓1 5 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.