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← Rankings

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

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 “regenerate”, we and wp.org disagree on the top plugin, and our order differs from theirs on 12 of the top 20. 3 plugins are 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

Regenerate product lookup table for WooCommerce shows at wp.org #6 but places #22 on merit, a gap of 16 places. Its 300+ installs carry it up the search order; its 4.0★ average from 4 reviews, plus freshness and upkeep, place it lower on our volume-weighted scale.

Buried gem

EWWW Image Optimizer places #12 on merit, 4.8★ from 1842 reviews, but shows at wp.org #23. A smaller install base keeps it further down the default search order than its quality signals alone would.

merit plugin wp.org
1 Force Regenerate Thumbnails 200K+ · 4.7★ (186) wp.org #2 1 too low 2 reGenerate Thumbnails Advanced 60K+ · 3.2★ (59) wp.org #1 1 too high 3 Regenerate Thumbnails 1M+ · 4.6★ (396) wp.org #3 4 Perfect Images: Regenerate Thumbnails, Image Sizes, WebP & AVIF 60K+ · 4.8★ (279) wp.org #5 1 too low 5 Image Regenerate & Select Crop 7K+ · 4.7★ (58) wp.org #4 1 too high 6 Enable Media Replace 600K+ · 4.4★ (302) wp.org #8 ↓1 2 too low 7 Simple Image Sizes 60K+ · 4.6★ (91) wp.org #11 ↓1 4 too low 8 A AJAX Thumbnail Rebuild 30K+ · 4.8★ (90) wp.org #12 ↓3 4 too low 9 Jetpack Boost – Website Speed, Performance and Critical CSS 200K+ · 4.7★ (612) wp.org #18 ↑1 9 too low 10 reSmush.it : The original free image compressor and optimizer plugin 100K+ · 4.3★ (166) wp.org #13 3 too low 11 Media Library Folders 10K+ · 4.3★ (465) wp.org #20 9 too low 12 EWWW Image Optimizer 1M+ · 4.8★ (1842) wp.org #23 ↓3 11 too low 13 WP Force SSL & HTTPS SSL Redirect 80K+ · 4.7★ (179) wp.org #21 8 too low 14 Resize Image After Upload 80K+ · 4.8★ (56) wp.org #16 ↑1 2 too low 15 ImageMagick Engine 60K+ · 4.4★ (16) wp.org #9 ↑2 6 too high 16 Advanced Media Offloader – Offload Media to Amazon S3, Cloudflare R2, DigitalOcean Spaces & More 7K+ · 4.7★ (48) wp.org #19 ↓4 3 too low 17 WP SVG Images 30K+ · 5.0★ (13) wp.org #15 ↑1 2 too high 18 ThumbPress – Compress Images, Manage Thumbnails, Detect Image Issues, WebP/AVIF, Lazy Loading, Hotlinking & More 20K+ · 3.7★ (117) wp.org #22 4 too low 19 Modern Image Formats 100K+ · 3.6★ (26) wp.org #14 5 too high 20 Simple Regenerate Slug 500+ · 4.2★ (10) wp.org #10 ↑2 10 too high 21 MCRPD Regenerate Download Permissions for woocommerce 80+ · 4.7★ (3) wp.org #7 ↑1 14 too high 22 Regenerate product lookup table for WooCommerce 300+ · 4.0★ (4) wp.org #6 16 too high 23 Real Thumbnail Generator: Efficient regeneration of thumbnails in all sizes 1K+ · 3.7★ (15) wp.org #17 ↑1 6 too high 24 Slugs Manager: Delete Old Permalinks from WordPress Database 3K+ · 4.2★ (13) wp.org #24

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.