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wp.org search vs our merit ranking: “woocommerce plivo”

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 “woocommerce plivo”, we and wp.org disagree on the top plugin, and our order differs from theirs on 4 of the top 16.

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

Texty – SMS Notification for WordPress, WooCommerce, Dokan and more shows at wp.org #1 but places #6 on merit, a gap of 5 places. Its 7K+ installs carry it up the search order; its 5.0★ average from 2 reviews, plus freshness and upkeep, place it lower on our volume-weighted scale.

How this rank is calculated

Each plugin's merit score multiplies these inputs together: how recently it was updated, how current its "tested up to" WordPress version is, its install base (log scale, capped at 10 million), its support thread resolution rate, and a rating score. The rating score weights the star average by review volume against a sitewide prior, then scales it by the lower bound of the share of 4 and 5 star reviews. A plugin with 3.7 stars from tens of thousands of reviews can still outscore a 4.9 with a few dozen, because the small sample carries less certainty.

A health factor between 0.4 and 1.15 then adjusts that score for what wp.org's search can't see: PHP fatals or failed activations on a test install, PHP and WordPress compatibility, memory and page-speed footprint, suspicious review patterns, closure risk, and a large install base with very few reviews. Clean, adopted plugins earn a small lift.

A keyword ranking starts from wp.org's search order for the term, weighting each position by 1 divided by its place, then applies the merit correction and health factor above. Relevance to the keyword stays in the result, so the order can differ from the all-categories list on /best, which scores plugins with no search term.

Hover a row to see the main reason for its position.

merit plugin wp.org
1 WSMS (formerly WP SMS): SMS Notifications, OTP Login and WooCommerce SMS 7K+ · 4.1★ (107) wp.org #2 wp.org ranks it 1 place below merit 2 Salon Booking System – Appointment Booking for Salons, Barbershops & Spas 2K+ · 4.4★ (187) wp.org #3 wp.org ranks it 1 place below merit 3 Trakoo – Orders Tracking for WooCommerce 10K+ · 4.5★ (58) wp.org #4 wp.org ranks it 1 place below merit 4 miniOrange OTP Login, Verification and SMS Notifications 5K+ · 4.7★ (439) wp.org #7 wp.org ranks it 3 places below merit 5 Recarto – Abandoned Cart Recovery for WooCommerce 3K+ · 4.5★ (28) wp.org #5 6 Texty – SMS Notification for WordPress, WooCommerce, Dokan and more 7K+ · 5.0★ (2) wp.org #1 wp.org ranks it 5 places above merit 7 WC – APG SMS Notifications 300+ · 4.8★ (23) wp.org #6 wp.org ranks it 1 place above merit 8 VuloMail – SMTP, Email Logs & SMS Notifications 40+ · 0.0★ (0) wp.org #9 wp.org ranks it 1 place below merit 9 Branded SMS 10+ · 5.0★ (2) wp.org #15 wp.org ranks it 6 places below merit 10 CartNinja Recovery for WooCommerce — · 0.0★ (0) wp.org #10 11 SMS8 – SMS Gateway for WooCommerce, Order Notifications, OTP Login & 2FA via Android 10+ · 5.0★ (1) wp.org #8 wp.org ranks it 3 places above merit 12 OrderRing Lite – SMS for WooCommerce — · 0.0★ (0) wp.org #11 wp.org ranks it 1 place above merit 13 G Gray SMS – Complete SMS Notificaitons for WordPress, Woocommerce & Multi Features — · 0.0★ (0) wp.org #12 wp.org ranks it 1 place above merit 14 Aslansheed Login — · 0.0★ (0) wp.org #13 wp.org ranks it 1 place above merit 15 Vitxi Converse – Intelligent AI chatbot for Social Media — · 0.0★ (0) wp.org #14 wp.org ranks it 1 place above merit 16 O Order Status Notification For WooCommerce 10+ · 0.0★ (0) wp.org #16

Merit ranking caps the install boost at 10M (wp.org leaves it uncapped), replaces the raw star average with a volume-weighted 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.