Plugin Pulse Beta
← Rankings

wp.org search vs our merit ranking: “website visitor”

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 “website visitor”, we agree with wp.org on the top plugin, and our order differs from theirs on 9 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

WPS Visitor Counter shows at wp.org #5 but places #20 on merit, a gap of 15 places. Its 10K+ installs carry it up the search order; its 3.9★ average from 8 reviews, plus freshness and upkeep, place it lower on our volume-weighted scale.

Buried gem

Anti-Spam, Spam FireWall by CleanTalk places #5 on merit, 4.8★ from 3220 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 Elementor Website Builder – more than just a page builder 10M+ · 4.5★ (7323) wp.org #1 2 MonsterInsights – Google Analytics Dashboard for WordPress (Website Stats Made Easy) 2M+ · 4.5★ (3157) wp.org #3 1 too low 3 Starter Templates: AI-Powered Website Templates for Elementor & Gutenberg 1M+ · 4.9★ (4755) wp.org #6 ↑1 3 too low 4 Website LLMs.txt 50K+ · 4.7★ (12) wp.org #2 2 too high 5 Anti-Spam, Spam FireWall by CleanTalk 200K+ · 4.8★ (3220) wp.org #11 ↑1 6 too low 6 Forminator Forms – Contact Form, Payment Form & Custom Form Builder 600K+ · 4.8★ (2143) wp.org #10 ↑2 4 too low 7 Jetpack Boost – Website Speed, Performance and Critical CSS 200K+ · 4.7★ (612) wp.org #9 2 too low 8 TablePress – Tables in WordPress made easy 600K+ · 5.0★ (4625) wp.org #12 ↑1 4 too low 9 Burst Statistics – Simple WordPress Analytics (Google Analytics Alternative) 200K+ · 4.9★ (186) wp.org #8 ↑6 1 too high 10 Albacross – B2B Website Visitor Identification 1K+ · 4.8★ (24) wp.org #4 6 too high 11 Really Simple Security – Simple and Performant Security (formerly Really Simple SSL) 3M+ · 4.9★ (8869) wp.org #13 ↑5 2 too low 12 Chatway Live Chat – AI Chatbot, Customer Support, FAQ & Helpdesk Customer Service & Chat Buttons 30K+ · 5.0★ (775) wp.org #16 ↑1 4 too low 13 Website Builder by SeedProd — Theme Builder, Landing Page Builder, Coming Soon Page, Maintenance Mode 600K+ · 4.9★ (4699) wp.org #21 8 too low 14 TranslatePress – Translate Multilingual sites with AI Translation 400K+ · 4.7★ (1667) wp.org #23 9 too low 15 TWIPLA – Website Intelligence 800+ · 4.6★ (18) wp.org #7 ↑1 8 too high 16 Simple CAPTCHA with Cloudflare Turnstile 200K+ · 4.7★ (262) wp.org #15 1 too high 17 Site Kit by Google – Analytics, Search Console, AdSense, Speed 5M+ · 4.2★ (1012) wp.org #17 ↑2 18 Meta Box – A Framework for Dynamic Websites 500K+ · 4.8★ (165) wp.org #18 ↑1 19 Visitor Traffic Real Time Statistics 30K+ · 4.1★ (233) wp.org #24 5 too low 20 WPS Visitor Counter 10K+ · 3.9★ (8) wp.org #5 ↑1 15 too high 21 Trace My IP – Visitor IP Tracker, Stats Analytics & Page Views Counter with Email Alerts 1K+ · 4.5★ (21) wp.org #19 ↑4 2 too high 22 Kadence Starter Templates — Predesigned Website Templates 200K+ · 4.3★ (19) wp.org #20 ↑1 2 too high 23 Visitor Count by MrStar 400+ · 4.5★ (2) wp.org #14 ↑2 9 too high 24 Website Open/Closed Toggle 500+ · 5.0★ (1) 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.