Buggy - Add Plugin > Keyword Search - Finding Plugins in the official WP Plugin Repository

[terminij]

When using the standard keyword Search input to search for plugins to install via wp-admin > plugins > add plugin:

1. The results are inconsistent from day to day.
2. It's impossible to reproduce consistently.

Have tried multiple testing sessions across:

1. Multiple Fresh Installs (Latest Version with ZERO PLUGINS)
2. Multiple Hosting Providers
3. Multiple Server Intallations on different Hosting providers/platforms
4. Multiple page refreshes and cache clearing
5. Different blocks of days and times

It is Important to Note:

1. Searching for the SAME EXACT PLUGIN (verified as existing in the official WordPress repository) by the SAME EXACT (tried multiple variations) keywords across multiple Fresh installs on various hosts/servers (see 'have tried' above) -EITHER-

• FINDS and DISPLAYS the officially existing plugin
• DOESN'T Find or Display the officially existing plugin
  • - CONSISTENTLY - in that during the SAME SESSION/DAY the search result will always be the same, either finding and displaying it or not finding and displaying it, but never mixed results during a short testing period/block of time, and
• - - - the search results are ALWAYS THE SAME for every distinct install/host/server (finding or NOT FINDING ACROSS ALL) when ALL distinct installs/hosts/servers are tested during the same testing day/session (ie. if one search doesn't find or display the searched plugin on one install/server/host, it also won't find it on any of the others when tested at the same time!!)
• - - - But WILL find and display it when searched on a completely different day/session (like 2 days prior for example, or 2 days in the future, on that SAME PREVIOUSLY TESTED INSTALL where the bug previously occurred or didn't occur yet)
  • - SOMETIMES - you can get it to display by searching the EXACT 'Developer Name', that the above consistency remains with this search as well, sometimes finding it, sometimes not finding it.
• - - - When searching by plugin author and that plugin developer has more than one plugin in the repo, it is important to note that it is not showing ZERO plugins, but rather many plugins by that author/developer BUT NOT THE SEARCHED FOR ONE!!!

This issue has been driving me ABSOLUTELY NUTS, because while it may seem easy to just simply download and manually install, when you're constantly working on multiple projects, different environments, or have a lot of plugins that quickly need to be installed on a fresh install, this can quickly add up to a TRAMENDOUS amount of time and work!!!

PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE SOMEBODY LOOK INTO THIS!!!
Current version: 6.8.1
Last checked on July 10, 2025 at 2:09 am GMT+0000.

PS. The only reason I am not providing screenshots to show the different installs is to keep my domains privacy and there is no way to show this without showing my domains. Also there is no way to really show different server/host environments in screenshots to show this issue in this way...

Thank you.

[dd32]

Hello @terminij,

Would you be able to suggest a keyword(s) which you've seen this with, and which plugin you expected to appear?

Can you confirm that it worked when searching on ​https://wordpress.org/plugins/search/ ?

While search results do change day-to-day, unless the query is somewhat unrelated to the plugin you're looking for it shouldn't be as visible as you're suggesting.

[terminij]

If you're able to test RIGHT NOW, wp-multi-network (WP multi network or wp multi-network and other variations) Plugin IS CURRENTLY NOT being found or displayed at this very moment.

Also if you search by 'John James Jacoby', it will display many of his plugins but not WP Multi Network Plugin (although I don't know how many he officially has and so I don't know if more are missing or just that one).

This has also happened many other times with many other plugins but right now currently, if you test like RIGHT NOW lol, you should see what I mean. I have literally JUST tested on various servers/platforms/hosts/installs lol and it is NOT showing and it is DEFINATELY there!! (​https://wordpress.org/plugins/wp-multi-network/)

[terminij]

Confirming: It CURRENTLY DOES NOT find WP multi network plugin when searching (​https://wordpress.org/plugins/search/):

CURRENTLY NOT DISPLAYING IN SEARCH FOR EITHER OF THESE:
​https://wordpress.org/plugins/search/wp+multi+network/ ...or
​https://wordpress.org/plugins/search/wp-multi-network/ ...or
​https://wordpress.org/plugins/search/john+james+jacoby/ ...or
​https://wordpress.org/plugins/search/john+james+jacoby/page/1/ ...or
​https://wordpress.org/plugins/search/john+james+jacoby/page/2/

But it is indeed listed here (and absolutely exists): ​https://wordpress.org/plugins/wp-multi-network/

[JeffPaul]

I suspect that specific example could be an issue with the plugin's "Tested up to" value being 6.1.7 and the related warning at the top of the plugin page:

This plugin hasn’t been tested with the latest 3 major releases of WordPress. It may no longer be maintained or supported and may have compatibility issues when used with more recent versions of WordPress.

Its possible that the search algorithm deprioritizes or perhaps completely ignores plugins that haven't been marked as tested to a recent core version?

[dd32]

Thanks for that @terminij.

As noted by @JeffPaul the plugin is almost certainly being deprioritised in the search results due to it's low install count and not being tested with a current version of WordPress.

The plugin IS in the index (I've checked), but when you combine the low-priotisations and using words which are commonly used by other plugins ("wp" "multi" "network") those higher installs / more recently updated plugins are ranking higher than it in the search results.

From what I can tell, this plugin wouldn't have been being returned on page 1 for quite some time.

There is an argument to be made that "I'm using the exact plugin slug, it should show that first" which sounds like a good idea at first.. unfortunately plugin authors use this to their advantage and will try to optimize their slugs to a search term, for example wanting to use "gallery" to corner those searches.

The best option I can provide to solve your specific problem is to use the Plugin Favourites functionality - although as you've added ​almost 350 plugins as favourites, and there isn't a "search within favourites" functionality that's sadly not a great solution.

In terms of a ticket resolution, potentially the above should be added to let searching within favourites, but past that, one of the tickets from the WordPress.org trac might be the best path forward:

​https://meta.trac.wordpress.org/query?status=!closed&milestone=Improved+Search

Specifically related are:

• ​https://meta.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/3338 (Plugin author search doesn't return relevant results)
• ​https://meta.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/5231 (Increase visibility of "old" plugins in Search Indexes)
• ​https://meta.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/4469 (Prioritize 100% matched slug in search)

[terminij]

While I appreciate everyone's responses to this, it doesn't quite make sense or "add up" to me at least, because:

1. I've searched this plugin (and others) many times before and there are many days it (they) comes up just fine, and other days just don't (for all of them - see next bullet).
2. This is not the only plugin I have seen this happening with, which is what sparked me to write this bug report, not simply this one and only plugin having this issue. I literally just had this happen the other day with "Post Duplicator - By Metaphor Creations" plugin was not populating in the search, I temporarily moved onto another plugin, but at a later date when searched for again it populated just fine and I was able to install it via wp-admin as per usual, as well as it is today, like right now, I just checked, populating and displaying in the search just fine - and that plugin is completely updated for the current version of WordPress (so this confirms it's not just happening with outdated plugins).
3. Many (if not all) even more outdated plugins still show up in the search (while there could still be an argument for this), with all the other facts surrounding this entire issue, points to this not being the reason.
4. Even if it was being "deprioritized", it wouldn't be removed completely (or shouldn't at least). Any plugin existing in the official repositoty that has not been "archived" (may not be the right word, "depreciated/removed" and is ABLE to be installed should show in the search results.
5. This is unfortunately not something that can be replicated in one session. The results are varied and inconsistent and need to be tested over time and with various (all types of) plugins. Unfortunately I wish it was simpler than that but this is what would be necessary to validate my findings - unfortunately - as what you are all seeing and experiencing right now is just a slice in time of the overall bug, and with one plugin (name) example I could think of off the top of my head, and this is unfortunately not the full picture...

You, mention that, "The plugin IS in the index (I've checked)" - I'm not sure what index you're referring to, but it is not listed in the live WordPress search pages (eg. ​https://wordpress.org/plugins/search/), at least not for me, not right now, (and the only way to truly test this is to search by plugin author - otherwise the returned list of plugins (pages) would be too long to manually comb through) and searching 'john James jacoby' returns 28 plugins and wp-multi-network should be one of them, but it's not and I am not sure how we are both seeing 2 different version of the live WordPress.org site, unless you're referring to the actual plugin index (outside of search, eg. ​https://wordpress.org/plugins/), then yes it is in that index but does not come up during search.

Unfortunately I haven't kept a detailed list, but I may start to log this issue in more detail with dates and times and plugin names this happens with moving forward and update here when I can, as I really do wish I could remember them all, but it's happened so many times and for the sake of time, I just opted to manually downloading and installing (or move onto another plugin entirely and come back to it at a later date, only to find the inconsistent behavior where the search then returned it just fine and then installed it then instead) rather than take the time to mess with a time consuming bug report. The only reason I decided to write one now is because I started it happening more frequently and all too often and then started my own testing to confirm it wasn't something I was doing wrong or my own misconfiguration (somewhere)...

Anyways, thanks for all of your time. I wouldn't be surprised if this is happening and no one is reporting simply due to the simple fix of manual install as well as time constraints. For the time being, luckily it is a simple fix, and I will just have to do manual installs for now or just keep doing what I've been doing (moving onto something else and searching again later lol).

(And yes, when you've been working with WordPress for 10+ years its easy to accumulate over 350+ plugins as favorites lol, thanks for putting them on blast!! Maybe it's time to prune them, idk, lol that's a whole nother project in itself!)

[mindctrl]

I've seen inconsistent search results too, and sometimes find it impossible to locate a plugin with search, and have to go download it manually.

That aside, should this ticket be closed and recreated on the [Meta Trac]​https://meta.trac.wordpress.org/?

[SirLouen]

Replying to mindctrl:

I've seen inconsistent search results too, and sometimes find it impossible to locate a plugin with search, and have to go download it manually.

That aside, should this ticket be closed and recreated on the [Meta Trac]​https://meta.trac.wordpress.org/?

This is 100% a meta topic as @dd32 has already pointed out (not sure why he has not closed yet)

There should not even be a new ticket adding up to the already ones existing like: ​#2642, ​#2753, ​#5231, etc...

Replying to terminij:

You, mention that, "The plugin IS in the index (I've checked)" - I'm not sure what index you're referring to, but it is not listed in the live WordPress search pages (eg. ​https://wordpress.org/plugins/search/), at least not for me, not right now, (and the only way to truly test this is to search by plugin author - otherwise the returned list of plugins (pages) would be too long to manually comb through) and searching 'john James jacoby' returns 28 plugins and wp-multi-network should be one of them, but it's not and I am not sure how we are both seeing 2 different version of the live WordPress.org site, unless you're referring to the actual plugin index (outside of search, eg. ​https://wordpress.org/plugins/), then yes it is in that index but does not come up during search.

Probably ​#2642 is the nearest one as @terminij is reporting that is searching for WP multi network plugin as an exact match, and nothing is popping, neither in ​plugins search page.

Conversation should continue in the Meta ticket suggested, here we cannot do anything to control results from Meta.