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wp.org search vs our merit ranking: “outdated content”

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For “outdated content”, we and wp.org disagree on the top plugin, and our order differs from theirs on 13 of the top 20. 4 plugins are pushed down for signals wp.org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

Outdated Template Updater for WooCommerce shows at wp.org #5 but places #16 on merit, a gap of 11 places. Its 40+ 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.

Buried gem

Internal Link Juicer: SEO Auto Linker for WordPress places #10 on merit, 4.7★ from 537 reviews, but shows at wp.org #23. A smaller install base keeps it further down the default search order than its quality signals alone would.

merit plugin wp.org
1 Yoast SEO – Advanced SEO with real-time guidance and built-in AI 10M+ · 4.8★ (27821) wp.org #2 1 too low 2 Outdated Plugin Notifier 400+ · 5.0★ (9) wp.org #1 1 too high 3 LocoAI – Auto Translate for Loco Translate 70K+ · 4.9★ (642) wp.org #7 ↑3 4 too low 4 Toolkit for Polylang – Translation Inspector & Duplicate Content 10K+ · 4.5★ (33) wp.org #3 1 too high 5 WooCommerce 7M+ · 4.5★ (4833) wp.org #4 ↓1 1 too high 6 Members – Membership & User Role Editor Plugin 300K+ · 4.9★ (1281) wp.org #12 ↑1 6 too low 7 Social Preview and Open Graph Tags 50K+ · 4.6★ (122) wp.org #14 ↓2 7 too low 8 Media File Renamer: Rename Images & Files for SEO (AI-Powered) 40K+ · 4.6★ (447) wp.org #20 12 too low 9 Defender Security – Malware Scanner, Login Security & Firewall 80K+ · 4.8★ (334) wp.org #21 ↓3 12 too low 10 Internal Link Juicer: SEO Auto Linker for WordPress 100K+ · 4.7★ (537) wp.org #23 ↓4 13 too low 11 Membership Plugin – Kadence Memberships 8K+ · 3.1★ (100) wp.org #6 ↓1 5 too high 12 Broken Link Checker 500K+ · 3.8★ (605) wp.org #11 ↓2 1 too high 13 Simple Membership 40K+ · 4.6★ (475) wp.org #18 5 too low 14 s2Member – Excellent for All Kinds of Memberships, Content Restriction Paywalls & Member Access Subscriptions 8K+ · 4.1★ (234) wp.org #16 ↓1 2 too low 15 Internal Linking of Related Contents 3K+ · 4.2★ (5) wp.org #8 ↓2 7 too high 16 Outdated Template Updater for WooCommerce 40+ · 5.0★ (2) wp.org #5 ↓1 11 too high 17 Auto Post Cleaner 1K+ · 5.0★ (3) wp.org #10 ↓2 7 too high 18 WP Hide Post — Hide Posts, Pages, Custom Post Types, and Control Products Visibility for WooCommerce 3K+ · 5.0★ (5) wp.org #24 ↓3 6 too low 19 Search & Replace Everything by WPCode – Find and Replace Media, Text, Links, and More 20K+ · 3.9★ (7) wp.org #17 ↓1 2 too high 20 Smart Bulk Delete & Content Cleaner for WordPress 100+ · 5.0★ (1) wp.org #9 ↓2 11 too high 21 Aimogen – AI Content Writer, Chatbot, Editor and AI Automation for WordPress 400+ · 5.0★ (3) wp.org #22 ↓2 1 too low 22 Content Reminder 10+ · 5.0★ (1) wp.org #15 ↓1 7 too high 23 k-OutDated Checker (k-OC) 60+ · 3.0★ (2) wp.org #13 ↓2 10 too high 24 Ergonet Cache 3K+ · 5.0★ (1) wp.org #19 ↓2 5 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.