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

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 “curate”, we agree with wp.org on the top plugin, and our order differs from theirs on 6 of the top 20. 2 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

Curator.io shows at wp.org #10 but places #19 on merit, a gap of 9 places. Its 2K+ installs carry it up the search order; its 4.2★ average from 5 reviews, plus freshness and upkeep, place it lower on our volume-weighted scale.

Buried gem

Podcast Player – Your Podcasting Companion places #12 on merit, 4.8★ from 113 reviews, but shows at wp.org #22. A smaller install base keeps it further down the default search order than its quality signals alone would.

merit plugin wp.org
1 Forminator Forms – Contact Form, Payment Form & Custom Form Builder 600K+ · 4.8★ (2143) wp.org #1 2 RSS Aggregator by Feedzy – Feed to Post, Autoblogging, News & YouTube Video Feeds Aggregator 40K+ · 4.6★ (361) wp.org #3 1 too low 3 WP RSS Aggregator – RSS Import, Feed to Post, Autoblogging, AI Content 40K+ · 4.5★ (565) wp.org #4 1 too low 4 Starter Templates: AI-Powered Website Templates for Elementor & Gutenberg 1M+ · 4.9★ (4755) wp.org #5 ↑2 1 too low 5 Smash Balloon Social Photo Feed – Easy Social Feeds Plugin 1M+ · 4.9★ (4358) wp.org #6 ↓1 1 too low 6 Juicer.io: Effortlessly embed, curate, and aggregate social media feeds into your website 8K+ · 4.2★ (29) wp.org #2 4 too high 7 Seriously Simple Podcasting 20K+ · 4.7★ (330) wp.org #7 ↓1 8 Simple Link Directory – AI Powered 2K+ · 4.8★ (121) wp.org #9 ↓1 1 too low 9 WPeMatico RSS Feed Fetcher 10K+ · 4.8★ (514) wp.org #11 ↑2 2 too low 10 Video Gallery – YouTube Gallery, Playlist & Video Grid 2K+ · 4.9★ (128) wp.org #12 ↓3 2 too low 11 Recipe Card Blocks Lite 10K+ · 4.8★ (20) wp.org #8 3 too high 12 Podcast Player – Your Podcasting Companion 10K+ · 4.8★ (113) wp.org #22 ↑1 10 too low 13 Tagembed: Social Media Feeds and Customer Reviews Widget 9K+ · 3.9★ (62) wp.org #13 ↑2 14 The Events Calendar Shortcode & Block 10K+ · 4.7★ (101) wp.org #24 10 too low 15 Product Bundle Builder for WooCommerce 6K+ · 4.8★ (61) wp.org #15 ↑3 16 Display Post Types – Post Grid, post list and post sliders 8K+ · 5.0★ (26) wp.org #17 ↓1 1 too low 17 Event Calendar Newsletter 600+ · 4.8★ (16) wp.org #20 ↑1 3 too low 18 EventON – Events Calendar 6K+ · 4.1★ (44) wp.org #16 ↓1 2 too high 19 Curator.io 2K+ · 4.2★ (5) wp.org #10 ↑1 9 too high 20 LLMs.txt Curator 100+ · 5.0★ (4) wp.org #18 ↓1 2 too high 21 Z Zone Manager (Zoninator) 2K+ · 5.0★ (3) wp.org #14 ↓1 7 too high 22 Pattern Wrangler – Manage Block Patterns and Pattern Categories 400+ · 5.0★ (5) wp.org #19 ↓1 3 too high 23 Emailchef 100+ · 5.0★ (4) wp.org #23 ↓1 24 Flockler – Social Media Embeds for WordPress 500+ · 5.0★ (1) wp.org #21 3 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.