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wp.org search vs our merit ranking: “create sidebars”

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 “create sidebars”, we and wp.org disagree on the top plugin, and our order differs from theirs on 10 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

Unlimited Page Sidebars shows at wp.org #12 but places #22 on merit, a gap of 10 places. Its 100+ installs carry it up the search order; its 5.0★ average from 5 reviews, plus freshness and upkeep, place it lower on our volume-weighted scale.

Buried gem

Members – Membership & User Role Editor Plugin places #12 on merit, 4.9★ from 1281 reviews, but shows at wp.org #23. A smaller install base keeps it further down the default search order than its quality signals alone would.

merit plugin wp.org
1 Custom Sidebars – Dynamic Sidebar Classic Widget Area Manager 100K+ · 4.7★ (1028) wp.org #2 ↓1 1 too low 2 Create 6K+ · 4.3★ (25) wp.org #1 ↑1 1 too high 3 Content Aware Sidebars – Fastest Widget Area Plugin 30K+ · 4.9★ (724) wp.org #3 ↑2 4 MaxButtons – Create buttons 70K+ · 4.9★ (1093) wp.org #8 4 too low 5 Elementor Website Builder – more than just a page builder 10M+ · 4.5★ (7323) wp.org #6 ↑1 1 too low 6 Create Block Theme 20K+ · 4.8★ (38) wp.org #5 ↓1 1 too high 7 Genesis Simple Sidebars 10K+ · 4.4★ (27) wp.org #4 ↓1 3 too high 8 WP Sticky Sidebar – Floating Sidebar On Scroll for Any Theme 10K+ · 4.9★ (153) wp.org #10 2 too low 9 Popup Builder – Create highly converting, mobile friendly marketing popups. 200K+ · 4.7★ (2215) wp.org #11 ↑1 2 too low 10 Brave – Create Popup, Optins, Lead Generation, Survey, Sticky Elements & Interactive Content 20K+ · 4.8★ (209) wp.org #13 ↑1 3 too low 11 Modula Image Gallery – Photo Grid & Video Gallery 100K+ · 4.7★ (616) wp.org #16 ↑1 5 too low 12 Members – Membership & User Role Editor Plugin 300K+ · 4.9★ (1281) wp.org #23 ↓1 11 too low 13 Pods – Custom Content Types and Fields 100K+ · 4.8★ (418) wp.org #22 ↓3 9 too low 14 Ocean Custom Sidebar 20K+ · 5.0★ (8) wp.org #7 ↓1 7 too high 15 Simple Page Sidebars 20K+ · 4.9★ (54) wp.org #17 ↓1 2 too low 16 Lightweight Sidebar Manager 80K+ · 4.2★ (21) wp.org #9 7 too high 17 Code Snippets 1M+ · 4.7★ (510) wp.org #19 2 too low 18 Ultimate Floating Widgets – Make popup sidebars 3K+ · 4.9★ (14) wp.org #15 3 too high 19 WPB Accordion Menu – Collapsible Vertical Sidebar Responsive Mobile Menu – WooCommerce Category Accordion 10K+ · 4.4★ (54) wp.org #21 2 too low 20 Linguator – AI Auto Translate & Create Multilingual Sites 3K+ · 4.6★ (20) wp.org #20 ↑3 21 All-in-One Sticky Anything – Click to Call, Fixed Widget, Sticky Header, Menu & Sidebar 1K+ · 4.9★ (15) wp.org #24 3 too low 22 Unlimited Page Sidebars 100+ · 5.0★ (5) wp.org #12 ↓1 10 too high 23 SMK Sidebar Generator 10K+ · 4.4★ (5) wp.org #14 ↓1 9 too high 24 Custom Sidebars by ProteusThemes 1K+ · 0.0★ (0) wp.org #18 6 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.