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wp.org search vs our merit ranking: “plain text”

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 “plain text”, we and wp.org disagree on the top plugin, and our order differs from theirs on 9 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 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

Text Replace – Find and Replace WordPress Strings shows at wp.org #11 but places #20 on merit, a gap of 9 places. Its 300+ installs carry it up the search order; its 5.0★ average from 3 reviews, plus freshness and upkeep, place it lower on our volume-weighted scale.

Buried gem

Germanized for WooCommerce places #9 on merit, 4.8★ from 496 reviews, but shows at wp.org #14. A smaller install base keeps it further down the default search order than its quality signals alone would.

merit plugin wp.org
1 FluentSMTP – WP Mail SMTP Plugin with Amazon SES, SendGrid, Mailgun, Postmark, Cloudflare, toSend, Gmail and Any SMTP 700K+ · 4.8★ (410) wp.org #3 2 too low 2 Paste As Plain Text By Default 2K+ · 5.0★ (9) wp.org #1 1 too high 3 Pods – Custom Content Types and Fields 100K+ · 4.8★ (418) wp.org #4 1 too low 4 Elementor Website Builder – more than just a page builder 10M+ · 4.5★ (7323) wp.org #5 ↑1 1 too low 5 Jetpack – AI Agents & MCP, Security, Backup & Analytics 3M+ · 3.7★ (2408) wp.org #6 1 too low 6 Ninja Forms – Contact Form Builder with Calculators, Quizzes, Signatures & AI Form Builder 500K+ · 4.4★ (1397) wp.org #10 ↑1 4 too low 7 Postie 10K+ · 4.7★ (139) wp.org #8 ↑1 1 too low 8 Variation Swatches for WooCommerce 300K+ · 4.8★ (926) wp.org #9 ↑4 1 too low 9 Germanized for WooCommerce 70K+ · 4.8★ (496) wp.org #14 5 too low 10 Add Plain-Text Email 100+ · 5.0★ (4) wp.org #2 8 too high 11 Conditional Fields for Contact Form 7 100K+ · 4.8★ (166) wp.org #12 1 too low 12 JVM Rich Text Icons 3K+ · 5.0★ (10) wp.org #7 5 too high 13 Email Encoder – Protect Email Addresses and Phone Numbers 90K+ · 4.9★ (94) wp.org #20 7 too low 14 Variation Swatches for WooCommerce – Color, Image & Size Swatches 200K+ · 4.6★ (51) wp.org #19 ↓3 5 too low 15 Text: AI chatbot, live chat & ticketing for customer service 100+ · 5.0★ (15) wp.org #13 ↑4 2 too high 16 Copy Anything to Clipboard for WordPress – Copy Button, Copy Text & Copy Code 10K+ · 4.5★ (36) wp.org #18 ↑6 2 too low 17 Payment Button for PayPal 4K+ · 4.5★ (40) wp.org #23 ↓2 6 too low 18 Website LLMs.txt 50K+ · 4.7★ (12) wp.org #17 ↓2 1 too high 19 Classic Visual Editor Options 1K+ · 5.0★ (6) wp.org #15 ↑3 4 too high 20 Text Replace – Find and Replace WordPress Strings 300+ · 5.0★ (3) wp.org #11 ↓3 9 too high 21 Full-Text Search 200+ · 5.0★ (2) wp.org #16 ↑3 5 too high 22 Dummy Text Generator 100+ · 5.0★ (2) wp.org #22 23 LMSCrafter Gradient Text for Elementor 100+ · 5.0★ (2) wp.org #24 ↓1 1 too low 24 RobArt Text Collector 40+ · 5.0★ (1) wp.org #21 ↓1 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.