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wp.org search vs our merit ranking: “pre flight”

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 “pre flight”, we and wp.org disagree on the top plugin, and our order differs from theirs on 12 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

Champlin Pre-Flight Audit shows at wp.org #5 but places #12 on merit, a gap of 7 places. Its — installs carry it up the search order; its 0.0★ average from 0 reviews, plus freshness and upkeep, place it lower on our volume-weighted scale.

merit plugin wp.org
1 WP Ultimate CSV Importer – WordPress CSV, XML & Excel Import Export 20K+ · 4.4★ (593) wp.org #2 ↑1 1 too low 2 Product Feed PRO for WooCommerce by AdTribes – Product Feeds for WooCommerce 80K+ · 4.7★ (1072) wp.org #4 ↑1 2 too low 3 E-cab Taxi Booking Manager for Woocommerce 2K+ · 4.9★ (28) wp.org #3 ↑1 4 Finale Lite – Sales Countdown Timer & Discount for WooCommerce 3K+ · 4.7★ (151) wp.org #6 ↑1 2 too low 5 WPBot – AI ChatBot for Live Support, Lead Generation, WordPress Automation, AI Services 5K+ · 4.7★ (124) wp.org #7 ↑1 2 too low 6 EazyDocs – AI Powered Knowledge Base, Wiki, Documentation & FAQ Builder 2K+ · 4.7★ (100) wp.org #9 ↑2 3 too low 7 AI Marketing Expert — AI Email Marketing, AI Content Generator, SEO Analyzer, AI Workflow Automation, Social Media & Ai Chatbot 2K+ · 5.0★ (1) wp.org #1 ↑1 6 too high 8 aBlocks – Gutenberg Blocks, User Dashboard Builder, Popup Builder, Form Builder & Animation Builder 2K+ · 5.0★ (26) wp.org #16 ↑1 8 too low 9 Travel & Tours Meta Search 200+ · 4.1★ (17) wp.org #11 ↑1 2 too low 10 Easy Optimizer – PageSpeed, Cache & Core Web Vitals (Unused CSS, Delay JS, Lazy Load) 1K+ · 4.6★ (18) wp.org #19 ↑1 9 too low 11 WebEquipe PDF Search 200+ · 5.0★ (3) wp.org #10 ↓1 1 too high 12 Champlin Pre-Flight Audit — · 0.0★ (0) wp.org #5 ↑1 7 too high 13 Form Flight Recorder — · 0.0★ (0) wp.org #8 ↑2 5 too high 14 GutenDraw – Visualize Ideas with Excalidraw 100+ · 5.0★ (2) wp.org #18 ↑3 4 too low 15 Multixor – Multisite Sync & Manager — · 0.0★ (0) wp.org #12 ↑1 3 too high 16 BuildsByLuke SEO Flight Recorder – Noindex, Meta & Schema Change Alerts — · 0.0★ (0) wp.org #13 ↑1 3 too high 17 BuildsByLuke Order Flight Recorder for WooCommerce — · 0.0★ (0) wp.org #14 ↑1 3 too high 18 Product Import and Export CSV for WooCommerce 10+ · 0.0★ (0) wp.org #15 ↑1 3 too high 19 Import WooCommerce Suite for Products, Orders, Coupons, Reviews, and Customers | WP Ultimate CSV Importer 4K+ · 2.3★ (6) wp.org #17 ↑1 2 too high 20 Anrok Tax for WooCommerce 100+ · 0.0★ (0) wp.org #21 ↑2 1 too low 21 Konfyra Omni Guard — · 0.0★ (0) wp.org #22 ↑2 1 too low 22 MirM Editorial Guard – Publishing Checklist & Content Rules — · 0.0★ (0) wp.org #24 2 too low 23 IT Empower Media Audit — · 5.0★ (1) wp.org #20 ↑2 3 too high 24 Certloom – Certificate Verification 20+ · 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.