Plugin Pulse Beta
← Rankings

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

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 “frontmatter”, we agree with wp.org on the top plugin, and our order differs from theirs on 4 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.

merit plugin wp.org
1 VigIA – AI Visibility, Analytics & Control 2K+ · 5.0★ (19) wp.org #1 ↑1 2 Static Site Exporter 400+ · 3.5★ (12) wp.org #4 2 too low 3 Knowledge Base 100+ · 5.0★ (2) wp.org #3 4 Markdown for Agents and Statistics 200+ · 0.0★ (0) wp.org #2 ↓1 2 too high 5 One-V LLM Serve 10+ · 4.5★ (8) wp.org #11 6 too low 6 RankReady – AI SEO, Schema, llms.txt, AEO and GEO for ChatGPT, Gemini and Perplexity 500+ · 4.8★ (5) wp.org #8 ↓1 2 too low 7 AISignal Markdown Converter 10+ · 5.0★ (2) wp.org #6 1 too high 8 Rawi MD — Markdown for AI Crawlers 10+ · 0.0★ (0) wp.org #5 3 too high 9 Q QH Markdown Exporter 70+ · 0.0★ (0) wp.org #7 ↑1 2 too high 10 HBmarkdown For Editors 50+ · 0.0★ (0) wp.org #9 ↑1 1 too high 11 Serve Markdown 80+ · 0.0★ (0) wp.org #10 ↓1 1 too high 12 Markdown Content Negotiator for LLMs 50+ · 0.0★ (0) wp.org #12 13 LLMark – Markdown for AI Agents & LLMs 30+ · 0.0★ (0) wp.org #13 ↑1 14 Marklane – Publish Markdown without the post editor. 10+ · 0.0★ (0) wp.org #14 ↓1 15 Berq Markdown: Markdown Pages for AI & LLM Crawlers 20+ · 0.0★ (0) wp.org #15 16 MTM HTML to Markdown 30+ · 0.0★ (0) wp.org #17 ↓1 1 too low 17 LLM Override 20+ · 0.0★ (0) wp.org #18 1 too low 18 Geweb AI Search 20+ · 0.0★ (0) wp.org #20 ↓1 2 too low 19 42A AI Visibility – Agentic Enablement Layer (AEL) 10+ · 5.0★ (1) wp.org #16 ↑1 3 too high 20 FoundByAI — LLMs.txt & AI Bot Tracking 10+ · 0.0★ (0) wp.org #21 ↑1 1 too low 21 Whizz MD — Markdown Endpoints for AI Crawlers — · 0.0★ (0) wp.org #22 ↓1 1 too low 22 Summix GetMD 10+ · 0.0★ (0) wp.org #19 ↑1 3 too high 23 Paradoks Markdown for AI — · 0.0★ (0) wp.org #23 24 AI Crawlers Visibility, Analytics & Control 10+ · 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.