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

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 “waves”, 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

Wavy Divider shows at wp.org #4 but places #18 on merit, a gap of 14 places. Its 700+ 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

Nexter Blocks – Gutenberg Blocks, Page Builder & AI Website Builder places #11 on merit, 4.8★ from 90 reviews, but shows at wp.org #22. A smaller install base keeps it further down the default search order than its quality signals alone would.

merit plugin wp.org
1 Unlimited Elements for Elementor 300K+ · 4.8★ (525) wp.org #1 ↑3 2 Easy Social Feed – All In One Social Feed Plugin for WordPress 30K+ · 4.6★ (502) wp.org #2 ↓1 3 HTML5 Audio Player – The Ultimate No-Code Podcast, MP3 & Audio Player 10K+ · 4.6★ (169) wp.org #6 3 too low 4 Inavii Social Feed – Live Social Proof Gallery 9K+ · 5.0★ (17) wp.org #3 ↓1 1 too high 5 EmbedPress 100K+ · 4.8★ (307) wp.org #11 6 too low 6 Simple Floating Menu 10K+ · 5.0★ (38) wp.org #7 1 too low 7 Invisible Anti-Spam & CAPTCHA — reCAPTCHA Alternative for All Forms 5K+ · 4.8★ (50) wp.org #8 ↑2 1 too low 8 AntiSpam for Contact Form 7 10K+ · 4.2★ (13) wp.org #5 3 too high 9 Confetti – Celebration Effects for WordPress 2K+ · 5.0★ (49) wp.org #13 ↓1 4 too low 10 Slider Hero with Video Background, Animation 3K+ · 4.8★ (34) wp.org #12 ↑1 2 too low 11 Nexter Blocks – Gutenberg Blocks, Page Builder & AI Website Builder 9K+ · 4.8★ (90) wp.org #22 11 too low 12 AnimateGL – WebGL & CSS Scroll Animations and Hover Effects for Gutenberg and Elementor 2K+ · 5.0★ (22) wp.org #15 3 too low 13 Audio Player Block – Advanced Block for Embedding Audio Files 2K+ · 5.0★ (10) wp.org #14 ↑1 1 too low 14 Trinity Audio – Text to Speech AI audio player to convert content into audio 2K+ · 4.0★ (25) wp.org #16 ↑2 2 too low 15 DWL Preloader 300+ · 5.0★ (4) wp.org #10 ↓1 5 too high 16 Known Agents – Track AI Bots and Crawlers, Block Scrapers, Analyze LLM Referral Traffic 1K+ · 4.8★ (6) wp.org #17 ↑2 1 too low 17 Image Slider 4K+ · 3.4★ (31) wp.org #23 6 too low 18 Wavy Divider 700+ · 5.0★ (1) wp.org #4 ↓1 14 too high 19 Marvy – Background Animations for Elementor 4K+ · 4.0★ (7) wp.org #20 ↓4 1 too low 20 Image Ticker Carousel | by Creavi 500+ · 5.0★ (3) wp.org #19 ↑1 1 too high 21 Section Separator Block – Modern Waves, Icons, Pills & Emoji Stacks 100+ · 0.0★ (0) wp.org #9 ↓1 12 too high 22 Paiement Wave Senegal 80+ · 0.0★ (0) wp.org #18 ↓1 4 too high 23 Unlimited Elements Blocks Library 500+ · 5.0★ (1) wp.org #21 2 too high 24 Iris AI – AI Homepage, Chatbot & Site Assistant 40+ · 5.0★ (1) 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.