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← Rankings

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

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 “wpseo”, we agree with wp.org on the top plugin, and our order differs from theirs on 5 of the top 20. 7 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

Supafolio shows at wp.org #9 but places #14 on merit, a gap of 5 places. Its 100+ 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 Real Custom Post Order: Create a custom order for your content 8K+ · 4.8★ (42) wp.org #1 2 DELUCKS SEO 300+ · 4.9★ (17) wp.org #2 3 Remove Dashboard Access 30K+ · 4.6★ (78) wp.org #4 1 too low 4 Cachify 9K+ · 4.7★ (47) wp.org #7 3 too low 5 S Surbma | Yoast SEO Breadcrumb Shortcode 3K+ · 4.2★ (9) wp.org #3 2 too high 6 wp-forecast 4K+ · 4.2★ (23) wp.org #6 7 WPSEO Pinterest Rich Pins for WooCommerce 30+ · 3.4★ (5) wp.org #5 2 too high 8 WP SEO HTML Sitemap 5K+ · 4.9★ (17) wp.org #14 6 too low 9 B BBpress Addon For Yoast SEO 30+ · 5.0★ (5) wp.org #13 4 too low 10 ShoppingFeed 50+ · 3.7★ (3) wp.org #8 2 too high 11 ADCT LLM Index — · 0.0★ (0) wp.org #10 1 too high 12 I Index Pages 60+ · 0.0★ (0) wp.org #11 1 too high 13 B Blog Image Sitemap — · 0.0★ (0) wp.org #12 1 too high 14 Supafolio 100+ · 0.0★ (0) wp.org #9 5 too high 15 S Shopp SEO Glue 10+ · 3.7★ (3) wp.org #18 3 too low 16 E Exposify — · 0.0★ (0) wp.org #15 1 too high 17 H Hobbynote Twitter Cards — · 0.0★ (0) wp.org #16 1 too high 18 W WP Open Graph Meta 100+ · 0.0★ (0) wp.org #17 1 too high 19 P Pure Web Brilliant's Social Graph Control 10+ · 0.0★ (0) wp.org #20 ↓1 1 too low 20 S SEO Content Control 10+ · 3.0★ (2) wp.org #19 ↑1 1 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.