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

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 “edges”, we agree with wp.org on the top plugin, and our order differs from theirs on 9 of the top 20. 1 plugin is 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

Majestic Support – The Leading-Edge Help Desk & Customer Support Plugin shows at wp.org #8 but places #17 on merit, a gap of 9 places. Its 3K+ installs carry it up the search order; its 5.0★ average from 8 reviews, plus freshness and upkeep, place it lower on our volume-weighted scale.

Buried gem

AI-Powered Carousel, Slider, Video & Photo Gallery Blocks by WP Carousel places #11 on merit, 4.7★ from 434 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 LiteSpeed Cache 7M+ · 4.8★ (2778) wp.org #1 2 Super Page Cache – Cloudflare Cache, Page Speed & Core Web Vitals 70K+ · 4.8★ (517) wp.org #2 3 LocoAI – Auto Translate for Loco Translate 70K+ · 4.9★ (642) wp.org #3 4 FluentSMTP – WP Mail SMTP Plugin with Amazon SES, SendGrid, Mailgun, Postmark, Cloudflare, toSend, Gmail and Any SMTP 700K+ · 4.8★ (410) wp.org #7 3 too low 5 Cloudflare 200K+ · 3.5★ (181) wp.org #6 1 too low 6 Popups for Divi 100K+ · 4.8★ (442) wp.org #13 7 too low 7 Gutenberg 400K+ · 2.1★ (3888) wp.org #5 2 too high 8 Envira Gallery – Image Photo Gallery, Albums, Video Gallery, Slideshows & More 100K+ · 4.7★ (1597) wp.org #18 10 too low 9 Sticky Header Effects for Elementor 300K+ · 4.5★ (69) wp.org #9 10 Speed Optimizer – The All-In-One Performance-Boosting Plugin 1M+ · 4.2★ (641) wp.org #10 11 AI-Powered Carousel, Slider, Video & Photo Gallery Blocks by WP Carousel 60K+ · 4.7★ (434) wp.org #23 12 too low 12 Atomic Edge Security – Firewall, Malware Scan and Login Security 700+ · 5.0★ (5) wp.org #4 8 too high 13 Speculative Loading 70K+ · 5.0★ (18) wp.org #12 1 too high 14 View Transitions 10K+ · 5.0★ (22) wp.org #15 1 too low 15 J jQuery Updater 20K+ · 4.5★ (64) wp.org #20 5 too low 16 Advanced IP Blocker 3K+ · 4.9★ (27) wp.org #16 17 Majestic Support – The Leading-Edge Help Desk & Customer Support Plugin 3K+ · 5.0★ (8) wp.org #8 9 too high 18 ThumbPress – Compress Images, Manage Thumbnails, Detect Image Issues, WebP/AVIF, Lazy Loading, Hotlinking & More 20K+ · 3.7★ (117) wp.org #21 3 too low 19 Pdf Embed 10K+ · 5.0★ (6) wp.org #11 8 too high 20 PDF Viewer Block for Gutenberg 10K+ · 4.8★ (9) wp.org #14 6 too high 21 MetaSlider Gallery – Image Gallery, Lightbox Galleries, Video Galleries 10K+ · 4.4★ (9) wp.org #19 2 too high 22 No Shipping Message for WooCommerce 3K+ · 5.0★ (19) wp.org #22 23 Wonder Video Embed 4K+ · 5.0★ (5) wp.org #17 6 too high 24 Browser Theme Color – Address Bar Color & Dark Mode 2K+ · 5.0★ (1) wp.org #24

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.