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← Rankings

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

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 “robots”, we agree with wp.org on the top plugin, and our order differs from theirs on 16 of the top 20. 1 plugin is 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

Disable WP Robots shows at wp.org #3 but places #18 on merit, a gap of 15 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

Blackhole for Bad Bots places #11 on merit, 4.7★ from 148 reviews, but shows at wp.org #24. A smaller install base keeps it further down the default search order than its quality signals alone would.

merit plugin wp.org
1 WP Robots Txt 40K+ · 5.0★ (21) wp.org #1 2 All in One SEO – AI SEO Plugin to Boost SEO Rankings & Traffic (Schema, Local SEO, Sitemap & SEO Insights) 2M+ · 4.7★ (5231) wp.org #2 3 SEOPress – AI SEO Plugin & On-site SEO 300K+ · 4.8★ (1267) wp.org #8 ↑4 5 too low 4 Better Robots.txt – AI-Ready Crawl Control & Bot Governance 5K+ · 4.5★ (102) wp.org #7 3 too low 5 XML Sitemap & Google News 100K+ · 4.4★ (85) wp.org #9 ↑4 4 too low 6 Virtual Robots.txt 40K+ · 4.3★ (10) wp.org #4 2 too high 7 Email Address Encoder 100K+ · 4.2★ (160) wp.org #13 ↓5 6 too low 8 Email Encoder – Protect Email Addresses and Phone Numbers 90K+ · 4.9★ (94) wp.org #17 ↑2 9 too low 9 Header Footer Code Manager 600K+ · 4.9★ (309) wp.org #15 ↑1 6 too low 10 Enable Abilities for MCP 5K+ · 5.0★ (17) wp.org #11 ↓1 1 too low 11 Blackhole for Bad Bots 30K+ · 4.7★ (148) wp.org #24 13 too low 12 HTTP Headers 40K+ · 4.3★ (70) wp.org #18 6 too low 13 Head Meta Data 10K+ · 4.8★ (19) wp.org #16 ↑2 3 too low 14 H HTTP 410 (Gone) responses 4K+ · 4.6★ (21) wp.org #22 8 too low 15 Easy MCP AI – Connect Claude to WordPress: MCP Server for ChatGPT & AI Agents 30K+ · 4.9★ (16) wp.org #23 8 too low 16 IndexNow Plugin 100K+ · 3.2★ (47) wp.org #20 4 too low 17 Admin Robots.txt Editor 800+ · 5.0★ (2) wp.org #6 11 too high 18 Disable WP Robots 200+ · 5.0★ (1) wp.org #3 15 too high 19 Visibility – Lightweight SEO, AEO and GEO for Search and AI 600+ · 5.0★ (6) wp.org #21 2 too low 20 Magic robots.txt 1K+ · 5.0★ (1) wp.org #5 15 too high 21 Hide Link | Really hide links to robots 100+ · 4.0★ (4) wp.org #14 ↑1 7 too high 22 noindex SEO 3K+ · 5.0★ (2) wp.org #19 ↑2 3 too high 23 Block Archive.org via WordPress robots.txt 400+ · 0.0★ (0) wp.org #12 ↓3 11 too high 24 Mephivio Robots LLMs 20+ · 5.0★ (1) wp.org #10 ↑4 14 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.