Plugin Pulse Beta
← Rankings

wp.org search vs our merit ranking: “css class”

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 “css class”, 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

Change class in viewport: create animations with pure CSS shows at wp.org #7 but places #21 on merit, a gap of 14 places. Its 60+ 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

Ad Inserter – Ad Manager & AdSense Ads places #7 on merit, 4.9★ from 2433 reviews, but shows at wp.org #19. A smaller install base keeps it further down the default search order than its quality signals alone would.

merit plugin wp.org
1 SiteOrigin CSS 100K+ · 4.9★ (153) wp.org #2 1 too low 2 CSS Class Manager – An advanced autocomplete additional css class control for your blocks 500+ · 5.0★ (12) wp.org #1 1 too high 3 Hummingbird Performance – Cache & Page Speed Optimization for Core Web Vitals | Critical CSS | Minify CSS | Defer CSS Javascript | CDN 70K+ · 4.7★ (1488) wp.org #5 2 too low 4 Elementor Website Builder – more than just a page builder 10M+ · 4.5★ (7323) wp.org #8 ↑4 4 too low 5 GravityWP – CSS Selector 4K+ · 5.0★ (8) wp.org #3 2 too high 6 C Custom Body Class 10K+ · 5.0★ (21) wp.org #6 7 Ad Inserter – Ad Manager & AdSense Ads 300K+ · 4.9★ (2433) wp.org #19 ↑4 12 too low 8 Widget CSS Classes 80K+ · 4.9★ (74) wp.org #11 ↑4 3 too low 9 Add class to Elementor Image 1K+ · 4.8★ (10) wp.org #4 5 too high 10 SVG Support 1M+ · 4.8★ (356) wp.org #13 3 too low 11 Add Admin CSS 10K+ · 4.9★ (35) wp.org #10 ↓3 1 too high 12 WPCode – Insert Headers and Footers + Custom Code Snippets – WordPress Code Manager 3M+ · 4.9★ (1915) wp.org #18 ↑1 6 too low 13 Visual CSS Style Editor 30K+ · 4.1★ (90) wp.org #12 ↓1 1 too high 14 Woody Code Snippets – Insert PHP, CSS, JS, and Header/Footer Scripts 50K+ · 4.5★ (221) wp.org #15 ↑3 1 too low 15 WP Sitemap Page 200K+ · 4.8★ (205) wp.org #24 9 too low 16 WindPress – Tailwind CSS integration for WordPress 3K+ · 5.0★ (37) wp.org #17 ↓3 1 too low 17 AnimateGL – WebGL & CSS Scroll Animations and Hover Effects for Gutenberg and Elementor 2K+ · 5.0★ (22) wp.org #14 3 too high 18 WooCommerce Stripe Payment Gateway 700K+ · 3.1★ (237) wp.org #21 3 too low 19 Pattern CSS – The CSS Editor For Blocks 100+ · 5.0★ (8) wp.org #22 ↓1 3 too low 20 HTML Tag and Class Replace 100+ · 5.0★ (2) wp.org #9 ↑1 11 too high 21 Change class in viewport: create animations with pure CSS 60+ · 5.0★ (1) wp.org #7 ↑1 14 too high 22 Disable CSS JS Cache 400+ · 5.0★ (2) wp.org #20 ↓4 2 too high 23 L Live CSS Preview 300+ · 5.0★ (2) wp.org #23 ↓3 24 Body Class By URL Parameter 50+ · 5.0★ (1) wp.org #16 ↓3 8 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.