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← Rankings

wp.org search vs our merit ranking: “github repo”

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 “github repo”, we agree with wp.org 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 the install base is organic or host-pushed, and its risk of being pulled.

Ranked above its merit

Embed Block for GitHub shows at wp.org #7 but places #21 on merit, a gap of 14 places. Its 400+ 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.

merit plugin wp.org
1 LiteSpeed Cache 7M+ · 4.8★ (2778) wp.org #1 2 Custom Post Type UI 1M+ · 4.6★ (276) wp.org #2 3 LightStart – Maintenance Mode, Coming Soon and Landing Page Builder 400K+ · 4.3★ (874) wp.org #3 ↑1 4 HTML Editor Syntax Highlighter 60K+ · 4.4★ (110) wp.org #6 ↓1 2 too low 5 Activity Log – Monitor User and Agent Changes 200K+ · 4.3★ (74) wp.org #5 ↑3 6 AddQuicktag 100K+ · 4.7★ (44) wp.org #9 3 too low 7 Go Live Update Urls 90K+ · 4.5★ (59) wp.org #10 3 too low 8 G Github Embed 1K+ · 3.9★ (14) wp.org #4 ↓1 4 too high 9 Admin Slug Column 5K+ · 4.9★ (31) wp.org #11 2 too low 10 Yoast Test Helper 50K+ · 4.9★ (12) wp.org #8 ↓1 2 too high 11 Debug Log Manager – Conveniently Monitor and Inspect Errors 10K+ · 5.0★ (25) wp.org #16 5 too low 12 O OpenID Connect Generic Client 10K+ · 5.0★ (21) wp.org #15 ↓1 3 too low 13 Featherweight 10K+ · 4.1★ (45) wp.org #17 4 too low 14 jQuery Smooth Scroll 10K+ · 4.5★ (47) wp.org #22 8 too low 15 Helper Lite for PageSpeed 2K+ · 5.0★ (9) wp.org #13 2 too high 16 Search Attributes for WooCommerce 600+ · 4.9★ (9) wp.org #14 ↑1 2 too high 17 Image and video gallery from Google Drive 4K+ · 4.3★ (39) wp.org #24 7 too low 18 Fix Image Rotation 4K+ · 4.4★ (27) wp.org #23 5 too low 19 Disable Blog 20K+ · 4.7★ (14) wp.org #21 ↓1 2 too low 20 MB Custom Post Types & Custom Taxonomies 10K+ · 4.7★ (13) wp.org #20 ↑1 21 Embed Block for GitHub 400+ · 4.2★ (5) wp.org #7 ↓1 14 too high 22 Auto Update Post Date 2K+ · 5.0★ (2) wp.org #18 4 too high 23 LearnPress – Course Wishlist 10K+ · 3.7★ (3) wp.org #19 4 too high 24 LearnPress – Prerequisites Courses 5K+ · 5.0★ (1) wp.org #12 12 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.