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wp.org search vs our merit ranking: “personal loan”

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 “personal loan”, we agree with wp.org on the top plugin, and our order differs from theirs on 6 of the top 20.

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 the install base is organic or host-pushed, and its risk of being pulled.

Ranked above its merit

Loan Calculator shows at wp.org #2 but places #8 on merit, a gap of 6 places. Its 400+ installs carry it up the search order; its 5.0★ average from 1 reviews, plus freshness and upkeep, place it lower on our volume-weighted scale.

Buried gem

MetForm – Contact Form, Survey, Quiz, Conditional Forms, Form Templates & Custom Form Builder for Elementor places #2 on merit, 4.7★ from 509 reviews, but shows at wp.org #11. A smaller install base keeps it further down the default search order than its quality signals alone would.

merit plugin wp.org
1 Loan Calculator WP 2K+ · 5.0★ (24) wp.org #1 2 MetForm – Contact Form, Survey, Quiz, Conditional Forms, Form Templates & Custom Form Builder for Elementor 500K+ · 4.7★ (509) wp.org #11 9 too low 3 Motors – Car Dealership & Classified Listings Plugin 9K+ · 4.5★ (79) wp.org #9 6 too low 4 Mortgage Calculator 1K+ · 3.9★ (13) wp.org #4 5 Responsive Mortgage Calculator 7K+ · 4.4★ (21) wp.org #7 2 too low 6 Ultimate Loan & Mortgage Calculator 100+ · 5.0★ (4) wp.org #3 3 too high 7 Mortgage Calculator 4K+ · 5.0★ (8) wp.org #6 1 too high 8 Loan Calculator 400+ · 5.0★ (1) wp.org #2 6 too high 9 Financial Calculator 400+ · 3.8★ (4) wp.org #8 1 too high 10 EMI Calculator 600+ · 5.0★ (1) wp.org #5 5 too high 11 stepFORM: Plugin for Building Contact Forms, Advanced Multi-Step Forms, Payment Integration, and Custom Contact Form Solutions 100+ · 4.6★ (5) wp.org #21 10 too low 12 F Fusion Pay by tbi bank 1K+ · 0.0★ (0) wp.org #12 13 EMI Calculator 400+ · 5.0★ (1) wp.org #10 3 too high 14 Personal Finance Manager – PN — · 0.0★ (0) wp.org #13 1 too high 15 Personal Loan Calculator – Calculator Hub HQ — · 0.0★ (0) wp.org #14 1 too high 16 Financial Product Comparison Tool 20+ · 0.0★ (0) wp.org #15 1 too high 17 FinCalc Toolkit – Financial Calculators 30+ · 0.0★ (0) wp.org #16 1 too high 18 CalcuLoan – AI Guided Chat Loan Calculator for WordPress — · 0.0★ (0) wp.org #17 1 too high 19 HisabCalc – Loan, Zakat, BMI & Age Calculators — · 0.0★ (0) wp.org #18 1 too high 20 Ecreate Calculators – Loan, Mortgage, BMI and Business Calculators — · 0.0★ (0) wp.org #19 1 too high 21 Gutenberg Block Toolkit – Page Builder for Gutenberg Blocks & Patterns 100+ · 0.0★ (0) wp.org #20 1 too high 22 Gainly Calculators — · 0.0★ (0) wp.org #22 23 Sprint Dotations — · 0.0★ (0) wp.org #23 ↓1 24 WPApps Loan Calculator — · 0.0★ (0) wp.org #24 ↓1

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.