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

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 “substitutions”, we agree with wp.org on the top plugin, and our order differs from theirs on 2 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.

merit plugin wp.org
1 String locator 100K+ · 4.6★ (125) wp.org #1 2 Cyrlitera – Transliteration of Links and File Names 40K+ · 4.6★ (62) wp.org #2 ↑1 3 Cooked – Recipe Management 3K+ · 3.9★ (90) wp.org #3 ↓1 4 Send Users Email – Email Subscribers, Email Marketing Newsletter 5K+ · 4.5★ (28) wp.org #4 5 FSM Custom Featured Image Caption 5K+ · 4.6★ (22) wp.org #5 ↑1 6 wpuntexturize 900+ · 4.6★ (12) wp.org #6 ↓1 7 Trendly AI Post – AI Content Generator, ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude and Google News Auto Blog 50+ · 5.0★ (4) wp.org #10 ↑1 3 too low 8 AnWP Sports Leagues – Basketball, Ice Hockey, Handball, Rugby & More 100+ · 5.0★ (3) wp.org #8 9 HuxxConnect – REST API Connector for WordPress 10+ · 5.0★ (3) wp.org #11 ↓1 2 too low 10 AI Marketing Expert — AI Email Marketing, AI Content Generator, SEO Analyzer, AI Workflow Automation, Social Media & Ai Chatbot 2K+ · 5.0★ (1) wp.org #7 3 too high 11 AZScore: Live Score and football fixures and results 100+ · 5.0★ (1) wp.org #9 2 too high 12 Crumb 20+ · 0.0★ (0) wp.org #12 13 Big SEO Programmatic 100+ · 0.0★ (0) wp.org #13 14 Style Genre — · 0.0★ (0) wp.org #14 15 Football Studio – Soccer League, Tournament & Club Manager 10+ · 0.0★ (0) wp.org #15 ↑9 16 A amilu67 Sostituzioni Digital Signage — · 0.0★ (0) wp.org #16 ↓2 17 SPOSCOR Football & Soccer — · 0.0★ (0) wp.org #17 ↓2 18 ChatAds – Affiliate AI Chatbot for Blogs — · 0.0★ (0) wp.org #18 ↓1 19 FileQuarry – Theme & Code Search — · 0.0★ (0) wp.org #19 20 Deskovi — · 0.0★ (0) wp.org #20 ↓2 21 PayRivet Payments with Stripe for WooCommerce — · 0.0★ (0) wp.org #21 22 CodeAtoZ – Cloud Messaging for WooCommerce 30+ · 0.0★ (0) wp.org #22 23 Geoflex — · 0.0★ (0) wp.org #23 ↓4 24 SendSMS for WooCommerce — · 0.0★ (0) wp.org #24 ↓3

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.