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wp.org search vs our merit ranking: “visually impaired”

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 “visually impaired”, we agree with wp.org on the top plugin, and our order differs from theirs on 8 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

Accessibility Assistant – Readabler shows at wp.org #11 but places #16 on merit, a gap of 5 places. Its 300+ installs carry it up the search order; its 0.0★ average from 0 reviews, plus freshness and upkeep, place it lower on our volume-weighted scale.

merit plugin wp.org
1 Button visually impaired 10K+ · 4.9★ (26) wp.org #1 2 Screen Reader Accessibility – WCAG, Text-to-Speech & AI Accessibility Fixes 600+ · 4.8★ (31) wp.org #2 3 HD Quiz 6K+ · 4.9★ (145) wp.org #5 2 too low 4 Top Image SEO 4K+ · 4.9★ (27) wp.org #3 1 too high 5 Accessibility New Window Warnings 1K+ · 4.8★ (17) wp.org #4 1 too high 6 ResponsiveVoice Text To Speech 7K+ · 3.9★ (34) wp.org #6 7 Fix Alt Text 1K+ · 4.5★ (8) wp.org #10 3 too low 8 ImgSEO – AI Image Alt Text Generator & Image SEO Tools 400+ · 5.0★ (10) wp.org #13 5 too low 9 Accessibility Assistant – EAA ADA WCAG AODA 100+ · 4.3★ (9) wp.org #9 10 Web accessibility widget by tabnav 300+ · 4.0★ (4) wp.org #7 3 too high 11 Bulk Auto Image Title Attribute (Image Title tag) optimizer (Image SEO) 1K+ · 3.6★ (5) wp.org #8 3 too high 12 Smart Alt Manager 100+ · 5.0★ (3) wp.org #12 13 UK Address Postcode Validation 700+ · 5.0★ (2) wp.org #14 1 too low 14 Barrierefrei – mit Hürdenlos.Assist 30+ · 4.0★ (4) wp.org #20 6 too low 15 Visionati 10+ · 5.0★ (2) wp.org #16 1 too low 16 Accessibility Assistant – Readabler 300+ · 0.0★ (0) wp.org #11 5 too high 17 Altagonist 40+ · 0.0★ (0) wp.org #17 18 Accessibility spring 60+ · 0.0★ (0) wp.org #18 19 Image Alt Setter 20+ · 5.0★ (1) wp.org #15 4 too high 20 Everyone Accessibility Suite – Free WCAG Accessibility Widget & Toolkit 60+ · 0.0★ (0) wp.org #22 2 too low 21 Listen2It – Text-to-speech audio article 70+ · 0.0★ (0) wp.org #23 2 too low 22 P Peter’s Custom Anti-Spam 200+ · 4.0★ (1) wp.org #21 1 too high 23 Eatransform Image Alt Manager — · 5.0★ (1) wp.org #19 4 too high 24 Ondoku – Text to Speech (TTS) 20+ · 0.0★ (0) 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.