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wp.org search vs our merit ranking: “prune”

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 “prune”, 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.

P

Ranked above its merit

Prune WooCommerce Orders shows at wp.org #3 but places #12 on merit, a gap of 9 places. Its 200+ 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

Email Subscribers & Newsletters by Icegram Express – Email Marketing, Post Notifications & WooCommerce Marekting Automation for WordPress places #5 on merit, 4.6★ from 1170 reviews, but shows at wp.org #10. 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 #2 1 too low 2 WP Visitor Statistics (Real Time Traffic) 20K+ · 4.5★ (156) wp.org #4 2 too low 3 A Auto Prune Posts 1K+ · 4.2★ (10) wp.org #1 2 too high 4 404 to 301 – Redirect Manager, 301 Redirection, 404 Error Logs & 404 Monitoring 100K+ · 4.7★ (321) wp.org #8 ↑1 4 too low 5 Email Subscribers & Newsletters by Icegram Express – Email Marketing, Post Notifications & WooCommerce Marekting Automation for WordPress 50K+ · 4.6★ (1170) wp.org #10 5 too low 6 Meow Mailer – Free SMTP, Everything Included 900+ · 5.0★ (25) wp.org #7 ↑1 1 too low 7 Custom 404 Pro 7K+ · 4.2★ (22) wp.org #5 2 too high 8 SEO Engine – Smart SEO with AI, Schema & Redirection for WordPress 1K+ · 4.9★ (48) wp.org #14 6 too low 9 Share a Draft 3K+ · 3.7★ (11) wp.org #9 10 Simple SMTP 2K+ · 5.0★ (11) wp.org #16 ↓5 6 too low 11 Message Bridge for Contact Form 7 and Telegram 10K+ · 4.3★ (22) wp.org #12 1 too low 12 P Prune WooCommerce Orders 200+ · 5.0★ (1) wp.org #3 9 too high 13 Drip for Gravity Forms 400+ · 3.7★ (6) wp.org #11 ↑4 2 too high 14 Magic Export & Import 200+ · 5.0★ (3) wp.org #13 ↓3 1 too high 15 Thumbnail Manager 200+ · 5.0★ (1) wp.org #6 ↑1 9 too high 16 NHR Database Cleaner & Optimizer – Revisions, Transients, Autoload & Options Manager 100+ · 5.0★ (3) wp.org #19 ↓2 3 too low 17 Presswell Art Direction 80+ · 5.0★ (2) wp.org #17 ↓4 18 Stunning Related for Posts, Products, Pages and widgets 60+ · 3.4★ (5) wp.org #21 ↓2 3 too low 19 CelerSearch – AI-Powered Instant Search with Meilisearch 30+ · 5.0★ (2) wp.org #20 ↓2 1 too low 20 Markdown for Agents and Statistics 200+ · 0.0★ (0) wp.org #15 ↓3 5 too high 21 PushAI – Self-Hosted Web Push Notifications 100+ · 5.0★ (1) wp.org #18 ↓2 3 too high 22 PressPrimer Assignment – Homework Submission, Document Viewer & LMS Grading Workflows 60+ · 5.0★ (1) wp.org #22 ↓2 23 ScheduleLens – Cron Viewer & Manager — · 5.0★ (1) wp.org #23 ↓2 24 BotsMap – XML Sitemap Manager — · 5.0★ (1) 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.