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

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 “stale”, we agree with wp.org 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 the install base is organic or host-pushed, and its risk of being pulled.

Ranked above its merit

Easy Auto Reload – Auto Refresh shows at wp.org #11 but places #23 on merit, a gap of 12 places. Its 1K+ 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

404 to 301 – Redirect Manager, 301 Redirection, 404 Error Logs & 404 Monitoring places #7 on merit, 4.7★ from 321 reviews, but shows at wp.org #17. A smaller install base keeps it further down the default search order than its quality signals alone would.

merit plugin signals wp.org

WP Super Cache 1M+ · 4.3★ (1346) wp.org #1 2

bbPress 100K+ · 3.9★ (343) wp.org #2 3

Broken Link Checker 500K+ · 3.8★ (605) wp.org #3 4

Safe Redirect Manager 40K+ · 4.7★ (78) wp.org #5 1 too low 5

Proxy Cache Purge 50K+ · 4.4★ (26) wp.org #6 1 too low 6

WP-ServerInfo 10K+ · 4.8★ (17) thin reviews wp.org #7 1 too low 7

404 to 301 – Redirect Manager, 301 Redirection, 404 Error Logs & 404 Monitoring 100K+ · 4.7★ (321) wp.org #17 10 too low 8

Colorlib 404 Customizer 5K+ · 4.7★ (51) wp.org #10 2 too low 9

Cachebuster 1K+ · 5.0★ (6) thin reviews wp.org #4 5 too high 10

Advanced IP Blocker 3K+ · 4.9★ (27) wp.org #9 1 too high 11

Email Marketing for WooCommerce by Omnisend 40K+ · 4.9★ (169) wp.org #18 7 too low 12

Hyper Cache 7K+ · 4.5★ (82) wp.org #12 13

Advanced Media Offloader – Offload Media to Amazon S3, Cloudflare R2, DigitalOcean Spaces & More 7K+ · 4.7★ (48) wp.org #13 14

SEO Booster 800+ · 4.8★ (54) wp.org #19 5 too low 15

Random Content 3K+ · 4.8★ (35) wp.org #21 6 too low 16

Broken Link Checker by AIOSEO – Find & Fix Broken Internal, External & Video Links 200K+ · 3.8★ (87) wp.org #24 8 too low 17

Offload Media – Cloud Storage 1K+ · 4.4★ (18) thin reviews wp.org #16 1 too high 18

Expire User Passwords 3K+ · 4.2★ (5) thin reviews wp.org #8 10 too high 19

TNC Toolbox: Web Performance 1K+ · 5.0★ (4) thin reviews wp.org #14 5 too high 20

Holiday Mode for WooCommerce 700+ · 4.6★ (5) thin reviews wp.org #15 5 too high 21

Perform – Optimize Performance 200+ · 5.0★ (2) thin reviews wp.org #22 1 too low 22

Disable CSS JS Cache 400+ · 5.0★ (2) thin reviews wp.org #23 1 too low 23

Easy Auto Reload – Auto Refresh 1K+ · 5.0★ (1) thin reviews wp.org #11 12 too high 24

Ergonet Cache 3K+ · 5.0★ (1) thin reviews wp.org #20 4 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.