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

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 “wayback”, we and wp.org disagree on the top plugin, and our order differs from theirs on 3 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.

merit plugin wp.org
1 Broken Link Checker 500K+ · 3.8★ (605) wp.org #3 2 too low 2 Better Robots.txt – AI-Ready Crawl Control & Bot Governance 5K+ · 4.5★ (102) wp.org #5 3 too low 3 Internet Archive Wayback Machine Link Fixer 1K+ · 3.8★ (8) wp.org #1 2 too high 4 Archivarix External Images Importer 1K+ · 5.0★ (9) wp.org #4 5 Archiveo – Importer for the Wayback Machine 200+ · 5.0★ (1) wp.org #2 3 too high 6 Check for Broken Links – Broken Link Checker & SEO Suite 1K+ · 4.0★ (6) wp.org #7 ↑1 1 too low 7 UXsniff AI-powered Heatmaps and Session Recordings 100+ · 5.0★ (2) wp.org #6 1 too high 8 LH Wayback Machine 300+ · 5.0★ (5) wp.org #22 ↓4 14 too low 9 Archivarix Broken Links Recovery 200+ · 4.0★ (1) wp.org #8 ↓1 1 too high 10 Add Smart Wayback Machine links to URLs — · 0.0★ (0) wp.org #10 11 Website Recovery Importer — · 0.0★ (0) wp.org #11 12 ContentTrace — · 5.0★ (1) wp.org #9 3 too high 13 LinkRevive AI – Broken Link Checker & Fixer — · 0.0★ (0) wp.org #12 1 too high 14 ELOQIO AI Content Reservation — · 0.0★ (0) wp.org #13 ↓2 1 too high 15 Quilio Link Checker – Find and Fix Broken Links — · 0.0★ (0) wp.org #14 1 too high 16 NaveenCodes LinkGuard — · 0.0★ (0) wp.org #15 ↓3 1 too high 17 Waymender – Broken Link Checker, 404 Monitor & Redirects — · 0.0★ (0) wp.org #16 ↓3 1 too high 18 Snagbane Link Scanner — · 0.0★ (0) wp.org #17 ↓3 1 too high 19 WP Shieldon – WordPress Firewall 100+ · 3.7★ (3) wp.org #21 ↓4 2 too low 20 BlogPilot by SuperApps — · 0.0★ (0) wp.org #18 ↓3 2 too high 21 DiFlowRin Bibliography Checker — · 0.0★ (0) wp.org #19 2 too high 22 PlugUpp Link & Image Health Audit: Broken Link, Broken Image and Mixed Content Checker — · 0.0★ (0) wp.org #20 ↓4 2 too high 23 R RockIt Link Health Monitor — · 0.0★ (0) wp.org #23 ↓4 24 A Archivist by Vadim Evard — · 5.0★ (1) wp.org #24 ↓4

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.