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

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 “throttle”, we agree with wp.org on the top plugin, and our order differs from theirs on 6 of the top 20. 5 plugins are 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

Crawler Record shows at wp.org #14 but places #23 on merit, a gap of 9 places. Its 100+ 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

Icegram Engage – Popups, Welcome Bars, Optins, Slide-Ins & Lead Generation for WordPress places #7 on merit, 4.7★ from 370 reviews, but shows at wp.org #11. A smaller install base keeps it further down the default search order than its quality signals alone would.

merit plugin wp.org
1 WPO365 | MICROSOFT 365 GRAPH MAILER 10K+ · 5.0★ (40) wp.org #1 2 Two Factor 100K+ · 4.7★ (209) wp.org #2 ↑2 3 Duplicate Post 300K+ · 4.9★ (1623) wp.org #4 ↓2 1 too low 4 Ultimate Addons for Beaver Builder (UABB) 20K+ · 5.0★ (332) wp.org #5 1 too low 5 WPO365 | SEAMLESS WORDPRESS + MICROSOFT INTEGRATION (WPO365 | LOGIN) 10K+ · 4.9★ (154) wp.org #6 1 too low 6 SilentShield – Captcha & Anti-Spam for WordPress (CF7, WPForms, Elementor, WooCommerce) 10K+ · 4.7★ (24) wp.org #3 3 too high 7 Icegram Engage – Popups, Welcome Bars, Optins, Slide-Ins & Lead Generation for WordPress 10K+ · 4.7★ (370) wp.org #11 4 too low 8 Broken Link Checker by AIOSEO – Find & Fix Broken Internal, External & Video Links 200K+ · 3.8★ (87) wp.org #8 ↑1 9 Easy Optimizer – PageSpeed, Cache & Core Web Vitals (Unused CSS, Delay JS, Lazy Load) 1K+ · 4.6★ (18) wp.org #9 ↑1 10 Nexter Extension – Security, Performance, Code Snippets & Site Toolkit 10K+ · 4.7★ (13) wp.org #12 ↑1 2 too low 11 Hridyaa Image Compressor and Optimizer 10+ · 5.0★ (2) wp.org #15 4 too low 12 Performance & Security 50+ · 5.0★ (2) wp.org #13 ↓1 1 too low 13 Feather – Elementor Performance Optimizer | Asset Cleanup, Page Speed & Database Cleanup 90+ · 5.0★ (1) wp.org #7 ↑1 6 too high 14 Bottle 100+ · 0.0★ (0) wp.org #10 ↑1 4 too high 15 Selective Thumbnail Regenerator 30+ · 0.0★ (0) wp.org #16 ↓1 1 too low 16 Codesala SEO Content Engine 20+ · 0.0★ (0) wp.org #18 2 too low 17 Web357 Mail Connect for Microsoft Outlook 365 20+ · 0.0★ (0) wp.org #19 ↑3 2 too low 18 Defyn Security Manager – Hide Login, 2FA & Brute-Force Protection 30+ · 0.0★ (0) wp.org #21 ↓2 3 too low 19 B Beltoft In-Stock Notifier for WooCommerce 10+ · 5.0★ (1) wp.org #17 ↓1 2 too high 20 Copyfend – Content Protection, Anti-Copy & Anti-Scraping 30+ · 0.0★ (0) wp.org #23 3 too low 21 RationalCleanup 10+ · 0.0★ (0) wp.org #24 3 too low 22 SpamAnvil – AI Anti-Spam & Comment Spam Protection 20+ · 5.0★ (1) wp.org #20 ↓3 2 too high 23 Crawler Record 100+ · 5.0★ (1) wp.org #14 9 too high 24 ParseLess 60+ · 0.0★ (0) wp.org #22 ↓2 2 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.