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wp.org search vs our merit ranking: “dominant color”

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 “dominant color”, we and wp.org disagree on the top plugin, and our order differs from theirs on 7 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

Image Placeholders shows at wp.org #1 but places #9 on merit, a gap of 8 places. Its 60K+ installs carry it up the search order; its 3.5★ average from 2 reviews, plus freshness and upkeep, place it lower on our volume-weighted scale.

Buried gem

SureCart – Ecommerce Made Easy For Selling Physical Products, Digital Downloads, Subscriptions, Donations, & Payments places #6 on merit, 4.8★ from 283 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 FooGallery Photo Gallery : Image, Video & Masonry Galleries 100K+ · 4.8★ (988) wp.org #2 1 too low 2 Stripe Payment Forms by WP Simple Pay – Accept Credit Card Payments + Subscriptions with Stripe 8K+ · 4.4★ (117) wp.org #6 4 too low 3 Poll Maker by AYS – Versus Polls, Anonymous Polls, Image Polls 7K+ · 4.4★ (91) wp.org #8 5 too low 4 Video Background Block – Add Stunning Video Backgrounds to Any Section 2K+ · 4.5★ (4) wp.org #3 1 too high 5 Dominant Color 200+ · 4.8★ (5) wp.org #4 1 too high 6 SureCart – Ecommerce Made Easy For Selling Physical Products, Digital Downloads, Subscriptions, Donations, & Payments 80K+ · 4.8★ (283) wp.org #20 ↓1 14 too low 7 Performance Lab 100K+ · 4.3★ (51) wp.org #13 6 too low 8 Rapls AI Chatbot – Self-Hosted RAG & MCP Server 50+ · 4.9★ (9) wp.org #9 1 too low 9 Image Placeholders 60K+ · 3.5★ (2) wp.org #1 8 too high 10 PuzzleMe – Interactive Puzzles for WordPress – Easily publish crosswords, quizzes, word searches and more 1K+ · 4.0★ (3) wp.org #7 3 too high 11 WebKew Image Dominant Color Generator 10+ · 5.0★ (1) wp.org #5 6 too high 12 SmoothPreview — · 0.0★ (0) wp.org #10 2 too high 13 Image to Design Tokens — · 0.0★ (0) wp.org #11 2 too high 14 Red8 – AI Color Palette Generator — · 0.0★ (0) wp.org #12 2 too high 15 Matcha Gallery – AI Photo Wall, Masonry & Portfolio Studio — · 0.0★ (0) wp.org #14 1 too high 16 WPSwings AI Website Optimizer — · 0.0★ (0) wp.org #15 ↓1 1 too high 17 Image Color Palette 20+ · 5.0★ (2) wp.org #23 ↓1 6 too low 18 RelayCard — Inline Related Post Cards — · 0.0★ (0) wp.org #16 ↓1 2 too high 19 NexChat Order — · 0.0★ (0) wp.org #17 ↓1 2 too high 20 Iridys Palette Extender — · 0.0★ (0) wp.org #18 ↓1 2 too high 21 RobArt Colour Collector — · 0.0★ (0) wp.org #19 ↓1 2 too high 22 SiteStaffr – AI Chatbot and Voice Agent for WordPress — · 0.0★ (0) wp.org #21 ↓1 1 too high 23 DGN Webs Spam User Cleaner 30+ · 5.0★ (1) wp.org #22 ↓1 1 too high 24 BTC Checkout — Bitcoin Payment Gateway for WooCommerce 80+ · 0.0★ (0) wp.org #24 ↓1

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.