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

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 “sitelinks”, we and wp.org disagree on the top plugin, and our order differs from theirs on 6 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

Microdata to JSON-LD Converter shows at wp.org #15 but places #20 on merit, a gap of 5 places. Its — 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.

merit plugin wp.org
1 Meta Tag Manager 70K+ · 4.8★ (84) wp.org #2 1 too low 2 Schema – All In One Schema Rich Snippets 30K+ · 4.0★ (162) wp.org #3 1 too low 3 Sitelinks Search Box 2K+ · 5.0★ (6) wp.org #1 2 too high 4 Schema 30K+ · 4.3★ (221) wp.org #7 3 too low 5 CrawlWP SEO – Complete WordPress SEO Plugin with AI, Indexing & Search Performance 30K+ · 4.7★ (62) wp.org #5 6 VigIA – AI Visibility, Analytics & Control 2K+ · 5.0★ (19) wp.org #6 7 PRyC WP: Google Sitelinks Search Box snippest 40+ · 0.0★ (0) wp.org #4 3 too high 8 Easy Schema – Structured Data & Rich Snippets 200+ · 5.0★ (8) wp.org #16 ↓2 8 too low 9 Schema Star 10+ · 5.0★ (2) wp.org #9 10 Simple SEO Improvements 300+ · 5.0★ (3) wp.org #24 14 too low 11 Promasterweb – Sommaire automatique 10+ · 0.0★ (0) wp.org #10 1 too high 12 AEO Engine 100+ · 5.0★ (1) wp.org #8 4 too high 13 INI Scout 10+ · 0.0★ (0) wp.org #11 ↑4 2 too high 14 wAnswers – SEO-First Q&A 10+ · 0.0★ (0) wp.org #13 ↓1 1 too high 15 NV oOS Content Graph 10+ · 0.0★ (0) wp.org #14 ↑4 1 too high 16 Ideal Wonderchat AI Chatbot 10+ · 5.0★ (1) wp.org #12 ↓1 4 too high 17 Swift Rank – AI-Ready & Search-Optimized Structured Data for WordPress — · 0.0★ (0) wp.org #17 ↓1 18 Chronition SEO — · 0.0★ (0) wp.org #18 ↓1 19 LP Software – Schema & Structured Data Optimization — · 0.0★ (0) wp.org #19 20 Microdata to JSON-LD Converter — · 5.0★ (1) wp.org #15 ↓2 5 too high 21 BlueSoup AI Auto Schema — · 0.0★ (0) wp.org #20 1 too high 22 ModulusTools SEO Suite – AI SEO, Schema, XML Sitemaps, Redirects & llms.txt — · 0.0★ (0) wp.org #21 1 too high 23 Ruxo SEO — · 0.0★ (0) wp.org #22 ↓1 1 too high 24 AgentGarrison – AI Visibility, AEO, GEO, AI Bot & Agent Control — · 0.0★ (0) wp.org #23 ↓1 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.