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

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 “journalism”, we agree with wp.org on the top plugin, and our order differs from theirs on 3 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 Trinity Audio – Text to Speech AI audio player to convert content into audio 2K+ · 4.0★ (25) wp.org #1 2 Photo Gallery by Ays – Responsive Image Gallery 1K+ · 4.8★ (19) wp.org #4 ↓1 2 too low 3 Inline Context – Footnotes, Tooltips & Glossary Notes 40+ · 5.0★ (2) wp.org #2 ↑2 1 too high 4 Printable PDF Newspaper 100+ · 4.8★ (4) wp.org #8 ↓1 4 too low 5 DocumentCloud 1K+ · 4.0★ (1) wp.org #3 ↓1 2 too high 6 Rankwell AI — Journalism Assistant — · 0.0★ (0) wp.org #5 1 too high 7 Qurio — · 5.0★ (3) wp.org #14 ↓3 7 too low 8 AIM Transparency – AI Disclosure for EU AI Act 90+ · 0.0★ (0) wp.org #7 ↑1 1 too high 9 Citeroom: AEO and GEO for News, Works with Any SEO Plugin — · 5.0★ (1) wp.org #6 3 too high 10 H HPCMF Reader Support with Razorpay — · 0.0★ (0) wp.org #9 1 too high 11 Need to Know Box — · 0.0★ (0) wp.org #10 ↓1 1 too high 12 Plucky Works — · 0.0★ (0) wp.org #11 ↓1 1 too high 13 BlockFact Verified Images — · 0.0★ (0) wp.org #12 1 too high 14 Podcast-Style Text to Speech – Hi, Moose 10+ · 0.0★ (0) wp.org #13 ↑3 1 too high 15 Advanced Charts for Gutenberg Blocks Editor 10+ · 0.0★ (0) wp.org #15 ↓1 16 Chartlet — · 0.0★ (0) wp.org #16 ↓3 17 Weblooks Writer – AI Writer, SEO Content & Auto Blogging — · 0.0★ (0) wp.org #17 18 TOCguide — · 0.0★ (0) wp.org #18 ↓3 19 Redact — Blackout & Erasure Poetry — · 0.0★ (0) wp.org #19 ↓2 20 M Medical Appointment Calendar SMS — · 0.0★ (0) wp.org #20 ↓2 21 Parasol — · 0.0★ (0) wp.org #21 ↓2 22 Pointwise Summary – AI-Powered TLDR, AI Summarize & Social Sharing — · 0.0★ (0) wp.org #22 ↓2 23 PEMPO AI Discovery – Boost LLM Traffic from ChatGPT, Google AI Overviews & More 20+ · 0.0★ (0) wp.org #24 ↓2 1 too low 24 Ping News 20+ · 0.0★ (0) wp.org #23 ↓2 1 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.