Honest rankings: “migration”
WordPress.org search rewards raw install count with no ceiling, so the biggest install bases float to the top regardless of quality signals. Here's what searchers actually see, next to a merit ranking that caps the install factor and weights ratings by review volume. How this works →
Install-weight distortion
DreamHost Automated Migration sits at wp.org #8 but earns only #20 on merit , 96% of its ranking comes from install count alone, on 20K+ installs at just 4.6★.
Buried gem
Yoast SEO – Advanced SEO with real-time guidance and built-in AI deserves #1 on merit but wp.org shows it at #15 , 4.8★ from 27813 reviews, buried by lower-quality plugins with bigger install counts.
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.