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

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 “crawling”, we agree with wp.org on the top plugin, and our order differs from theirs on 11 of the top 20. 3 plugins are 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

Crawler Record shows at wp.org #14 but places #24 on merit, a gap of 10 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.

W

Buried gem

WP Customer Reviews places #3 on merit, 4.3★ from 528 reviews, but shows at wp.org #7. A smaller install base keeps it further down the default search order than its quality signals alone would.

merit plugin wp.org
1 Yoast SEO – Advanced SEO with real-time guidance and built-in AI 10M+ · 4.8★ (27821) wp.org #1 2 IndexNow Plugin 100K+ · 3.2★ (47) wp.org #2 3 W WP Customer Reviews 20K+ · 4.3★ (528) wp.org #7 4 too low 4 Website LLMs.txt 50K+ · 4.7★ (12) wp.org #4 5 Bing URL Submissions Plugin 40K+ · 3.3★ (21) wp.org #3 2 too high 6 Companion Sitemap Generator – Simple, Smart, and SEO-Ready 6K+ · 4.7★ (55) wp.org #9 3 too low 7 GN Publisher: Google News Compatible RSS Feeds 20K+ · 4.9★ (29) wp.org #8 1 too low 8 ReCrawler 3K+ · 5.0★ (11) wp.org #5 3 too high 9 Better Robots.txt – AI-Ready Crawl Control & Bot Governance 5K+ · 4.5★ (102) wp.org #11 ↑1 2 too low 10 WP Review Slider 6K+ · 4.8★ (181) wp.org #13 ↑1 3 too low 11 Instant Indexing for Google 200K+ · 3.6★ (36) wp.org #12 ↓1 1 too low 12 Zhanzhangb Indexing Submission for Baidu 2K+ · 5.0★ (4) wp.org #6 6 too high 13 GPTranslate – Multilingual AI Translation Agent for WordPress: Translate Your Site with AI 500+ · 5.0★ (34) wp.org #22 9 too low 14 Sitemap Generator 3K+ · 3.7★ (23) wp.org #18 ↑1 4 too low 15 Link Checker 4K+ · 3.2★ (30) wp.org #16 ↓1 1 too low 16 Export WordPress Pages to Static HTML & PDF — Static Site Export 4K+ · 3.8★ (51) wp.org #20 ↑1 4 too low 17 F12 Profiler 400+ · 4.0★ (6) wp.org #21 ↓4 4 too low 18 Admin Robots.txt Editor 800+ · 5.0★ (2) wp.org #10 8 too high 19 Bot Traffic Shield – Block Bad Bots and Stop AI Bots Crawlers 800+ · 5.0★ (5) wp.org #24 5 too low 20 Auto Ping Booster 900+ · 4.0★ (4) wp.org #17 ↓1 3 too high 21 Lead Generation Contact Widget & AI Chatbot: Chat Button, Phone Call, Telegram, Email – SiteLeads 10K+ · 5.0★ (2) wp.org #19 ↑3 2 too high 22 On Page SEO + Social Live Chat 100+ · 5.0★ (2) wp.org #23 1 too low 23 Static Porter 100+ · 5.0★ (1) wp.org #15 ↑8 8 too high 24 Crawler Record 100+ · 5.0★ (1) wp.org #14 ↓1 10 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.