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← Rankings

wp.org search vs our merit ranking: “page refresh”

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 “page refresh”, we and wp.org disagree on the top plugin, and our order differs from theirs on 11 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.

Ranked above its merit

Auto Refresh Post & Page shows at wp.org #7 but places #21 on merit, a gap of 14 places. Its 80+ 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

Asset CleanUp: Page Speed Booster places #11 on merit, 4.9★ from 1564 reviews, but shows at wp.org #21. A smaller install base keeps it further down the default search order than its quality signals alone would.

merit plugin wp.org
1 Super Page Cache – Cloudflare Cache, Page Speed & Core Web Vitals 70K+ · 4.8★ (517) wp.org #2 ↑1 1 too low 2 Force Refresh 4K+ · 5.0★ (12) wp.org #1 1 too high 3 Under Construction 600K+ · 4.8★ (1285) wp.org #5 2 too low 4 Read More Without Refresh 20K+ · 4.2★ (55) wp.org #3 ↓1 1 too high 5 Rank Math SEO – AI SEO Tools to Dominate SEO Rankings 4M+ · 4.8★ (7519) wp.org #8 ↓2 3 too low 6 PPWP – Password Protect Pages 30K+ · 4.7★ (271) wp.org #9 3 too low 7 Post and Page Builder by BoldGrid – Visual Drag and Drop Editor 50K+ · 4.7★ (140) wp.org #10 3 too low 8 Merge + Minify + Refresh 3K+ · 4.2★ (68) wp.org #6 ↑1 2 too high 9 Custom Login Page Customizer 50K+ · 4.9★ (476) wp.org #17 ↑2 8 too low 10 LoginPress | wp-login Custom Login Page Customizer 200K+ · 4.8★ (1077) wp.org #15 ↑3 5 too low 11 Asset CleanUp: Page Speed Booster 100K+ · 4.9★ (1564) wp.org #21 ↓7 10 too low 12 Stackable – Page Builder Gutenberg Blocks 100K+ · 4.9★ (522) wp.org #19 ↑2 7 too low 13 I Insert Pages 30K+ · 4.8★ (71) wp.org #14 ↑2 1 too low 14 AMP for WP – Accelerated Mobile Pages 70K+ · 4.4★ (1319) wp.org #22 ↑1 8 too low 15 Page Builder: Pagelayer – Drag and Drop website builder 400K+ · 3.9★ (104) wp.org #13 ↑4 2 too high 16 Page Visits Counter – Lite 5K+ · 4.0★ (7) wp.org #4 12 too high 17 All in One SEO – AI SEO Plugin to Boost SEO Rankings & Traffic (Schema, Local SEO, Sitemap & SEO Insights) 2M+ · 4.7★ (5231) wp.org #24 ↓2 7 too low 18 WP Links Page 3K+ · 4.6★ (45) wp.org #18 ↓3 19 Passster – Password Protect Pages and Content 10K+ · 4.2★ (60) wp.org #20 ↓7 1 too low 20 Live Auto Refresh (Hot Reload / Live Reload for WordPress Developers) 100+ · 4.3★ (6) wp.org #12 ↓1 8 too high 21 Auto Refresh Post & Page 80+ · 5.0★ (2) wp.org #7 ↑1 14 too high 22 HTML Page Publisher 500+ · 5.0★ (2) wp.org #16 6 too high 23 Easy Auto Reload – Auto Refresh 1K+ · 5.0★ (1) wp.org #11 ↑1 12 too high 24 Read More Button – Expand Content Without Refresh 100+ · 5.0★ (1) wp.org #23 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.