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

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

Timeline – Tell Your Story Through Events and Milestones shows at wp.org #2 but places #14 on merit, a gap of 12 places. Its 2K+ installs carry it up the search order; its 4.3★ average from 6 reviews, plus freshness and upkeep, place it lower on our volume-weighted scale.

merit plugin wp.org
1 Yoast SEO – Advanced SEO with real-time guidance and built-in AI 10M+ · 4.8★ (27821) wp.org #3 2 too low 2 WPVibe – MCP Server for WordPress, works with Claude, ChatGPT & other AI MCP agents 100K+ · 5.0★ (195) wp.org #4 2 too low 3 Timeline Block – tell your story with elegant timelines 3K+ · 5.0★ (6) wp.org #1 2 too high 4 Members – Membership & User Role Editor Plugin 300K+ · 4.9★ (1281) wp.org #6 2 too low 5 Anti-Spam, Spam FireWall by CleanTalk 200K+ · 4.8★ (3220) wp.org #7 ↓1 2 too low 6 ReCaptcha v2 for Contact Form 7 200K+ · 5.0★ (89) wp.org #5 1 too high 7 301 Redirects – Redirect Manager 300K+ · 4.7★ (578) wp.org #8 1 too low 8 404 to 301 – Redirect Manager, 301 Redirection, 404 Error Logs & 404 Monitoring 100K+ · 4.7★ (321) wp.org #9 1 too low 9 Media Cleaner: Delete Unused Images & Clean Your Media Library 90K+ · 4.6★ (779) wp.org #11 ↓4 2 too low 10 WP ULike – Like Buttons, Voting & Engagement Analytics 60K+ · 4.8★ (283) wp.org #10 11 Smart Slider 3 800K+ · 4.9★ (1125) wp.org #12 ↓1 1 too low 12 Timeline Widget For Elementor (Elementor Timeline, Vertical & Horizontal Timeline) 70K+ · 4.8★ (248) wp.org #15 ↓2 3 too low 13 ElementsKit Elementor Addons – Advanced Widgets & Templates Addons for Elementor 1M+ · 4.9★ (2051) wp.org #19 ↑3 6 too low 14 Timeline – Tell Your Story Through Events and Milestones 2K+ · 4.3★ (6) wp.org #2 12 too high 15 Fluent Forms – Customizable Contact Forms, Survey, Quiz, & Conversational Form Builder 800K+ · 4.8★ (807) wp.org #21 ↓7 6 too low 16 Disable All WordPress Updates 20K+ · 4.8★ (69) wp.org #16 ↓1 17 FluentSnippets – High-Performance Code Snippets, Header & Footer Code, Custom CSS & PHP Code Manager 50K+ · 4.7★ (78) wp.org #18 1 too low 18 WP LinkedIn Auto Publish 8K+ · 4.8★ (106) wp.org #13 ↓1 5 too high 19 WP fail2ban – Advanced Security 60K+ · 4.2★ (71) wp.org #20 ↓3 1 too low 20 FluentAuth – Login Security, Two-Factor Authentication, Passkeys & Social Login 10K+ · 4.1★ (35) wp.org #14 ↑2 6 too high 21 No Gutenberg? – Choose Where to Use the Block Editor or the Classic Editor 9K+ · 5.0★ (16) wp.org #17 ↑2 4 too high 22 Vigilant – 100% Free Security Suite: Firewall, 2FA, Login, Headers, Scanner… 3K+ · 5.0★ (24) wp.org #22 ↓2 23 CrawlWP SEO – Complete WordPress SEO Plugin with AI, Indexing & Search Performance 30K+ · 4.7★ (62) wp.org #23 ↓2 24 Campos Checkout Brasileiro para WooCommerce 5K+ · 4.9★ (45) 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.