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

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 “metabox”, we and wp.org disagree on the top plugin, and our order differs from theirs on 13 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

JSM Show User Metadata shows at wp.org #14 but places #23 on merit, a gap of 9 places. Its 3K+ installs carry it up the search order; its 5.0★ average from 2 reviews, plus freshness and upkeep, place it lower on our volume-weighted scale.

merit plugin wp.org
1 SEOPress – AI SEO Plugin & On-site SEO 300K+ · 4.8★ (1267) wp.org #2 1 too low 2 Categories Metabox Enhanced 1K+ · 4.9★ (16) wp.org #1 1 too high 3 Super Page Cache – Cloudflare Cache, Page Speed & Core Web Vitals 70K+ · 4.8★ (517) wp.org #6 ↑1 3 too low 4 All in One SEO – AI SEO Plugin to Boost SEO Rankings & Traffic (Schema, Local SEO, Sitemap & SEO Insights) 2M+ · 4.7★ (5231) wp.org #5 1 too low 5 Media Cleaner: Delete Unused Images & Clean Your Media Library 90K+ · 4.6★ (779) wp.org #7 ↓1 2 too low 6 CMB2 300K+ · 5.0★ (91) wp.org #3 3 too high 7 Ocean Extra 400K+ · 3.3★ (67) wp.org #4 3 too high 8 Meta Field Block – Display Custom Fields for ACF, Meta Box and More 10K+ · 5.0★ (57) wp.org #8 ↑3 9 Download Attachments 8K+ · 4.5★ (46) wp.org #9 ↓1 10 WP Attachments – Smarter File Management & Download Lists 3K+ · 4.5★ (43) wp.org #13 ↑3 3 too low 11 Advanced Views – Display Framework – Gutenberg/Elementor/Shortcode 2K+ · 4.8★ (36) wp.org #15 ↓3 4 too low 12 JSM Show Post Metadata 10K+ · 5.0★ (12) wp.org #11 ↓1 1 too high 13 CrawlWP SEO – Complete WordPress SEO Plugin with AI, Indexing & Search Performance 30K+ · 4.7★ (62) wp.org #18 ↓1 5 too low 14 Simple Divi Shortcode 10K+ · 5.0★ (23) wp.org #19 ↓4 5 too low 15 Login as User: See the Site as Any User 30K+ · 4.8★ (41) wp.org #23 8 too low 16 Simple Page Redirect 10K+ · 5.0★ (8) wp.org #12 4 too high 17 Hide Posts 20K+ · 4.7★ (22) wp.org #20 ↓1 3 too low 18 V Virtue/Ascend/Pinnacle Toolkit 30K+ · 3.5★ (10) wp.org #10 ↓1 8 too high 19 SVG Block 4K+ · 5.0★ (14) wp.org #24 5 too low 20 forumAttachments for bbPress 6K+ · 4.3★ (26) wp.org #22 ↓1 2 too low 21 WP Post Redirect 3K+ · 4.6★ (5) wp.org #16 ↓2 5 too high 22 Pure Metafields 10K+ · 4.3★ (6) wp.org #17 ↑3 5 too high 23 JSM Show User Metadata 3K+ · 5.0★ (2) wp.org #14 ↓1 9 too high 24 SiteSEO – SEO Simplified 400K+ · 4.0★ (8) wp.org #21 3 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.