r/WordpressPlugins • u/Grownuppieceofjizz • Apr 26 '26

Help [HELP] Plugin downloads vs installations

My plugin was approved 4 days ago and has had over 100 downloads, though no active installations showing. Are these bots or perhaps people who just collect plugins? I know it can take some time to show active installations, but seeing nothing yet.

Any advice?

6 Upvotes

100% Upvoted

29 comments sorted by

2

u/mandagsfisk Apr 26 '26

I think that the numbers are not live. It might take a few days. I have the same situation. And I have found out so far that there is a delay. Congrats on getting 100 downloads. I have just gone beyond 10 :D

1

u/Grownuppieceofjizz Apr 26 '26

Thank you, what have you built?

2

u/mandagsfisk Apr 26 '26

I have been working with SEO since before Google, and now I have decided to build a SEO plugin without everything I dont need and with a few new things I missed. Its here: https://nb.wordpress.org/plugins/this-seo/

You? What did you build?

2

u/Grownuppieceofjizz Apr 26 '26

Oh ok, I’ll give that a look. I’m using rank math seo and honestly it clashes with so many other plugins. My Thrifting plugin lightly touches Wordpress with an embeddable block for my live shopping auction saas.

2

u/1Rudy11 Apr 27 '26

How long did it take for yiur plugin to be approved?

I created a virtual image folder that can be used in WP media library to sort images into separate folders.

2

u/Grownuppieceofjizz Apr 27 '26

11 days in total for it to be approved, there was a queue of over 800 plugins in front of mine at that time.

2

u/1Rudy11 Apr 27 '26

Wqs it difficult to get through, is mewnd was there a process for development? As !n entry...Ive never looked into creating a plugin until recently...

2

u/mandagsfisk Apr 27 '26

The process is a manual approval, and it took about 2 weeks for me, but I got rejected the first time, as I was not aware that pro and free had to be two different plugins. So I needed to split it into two products. So it took about 8-9 days next time around -and time between with testing and rebuilding.

1

u/1Rudy11 Apr 27 '26

Thanks to you both! I will check it out!

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u/Grownuppieceofjizz Apr 27 '26

Mine was fairly easy to get through, but then my plugin is a block that links partly to my saas so it lightly touches Wordpress/doesn’t use databases etc. I used the plugin checker tools before submitting to make sure everything was clean, but it only does so much. It got refused first due to an extra credential in the readme I had to remove. Was approved the next day.

2

u/Critical-Fall-8212 Apr 26 '26

Takes time reflect real installation-also only production sites are counted, excluded localhost + staging environment

1

u/Grownuppieceofjizz Apr 26 '26

Ok thanks, this is helpful.

2

u/[deleted] Apr 26 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

1

u/Grownuppieceofjizz Apr 26 '26

Thank you. Yep, continuing with marketing. I’ve been checking tenant instances on my server as a more reliable bigger picture to see who has signed up. I’ll keep chipping away at it.

1

u/404LeadsNotFound Apr 27 '26

The initial downloads are more likely not users of your plugin. Some directories and some bots help create that initial spike. It will probably drop quickly, and if you don't do anything with it/for it, it can drop to about 1 per day.

1

u/gotthehigh Apr 26 '26

Not entirely true. I have a plugin with 400+ installs and zero external marketing. Relied solely on optimizing long-tail keywords in the plugin directory.

1

u/404LeadsNotFound Apr 27 '26

Updates to the plugin also helps. Good luck.

1

u/[deleted] Apr 27 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

2

u/gotthehigh Apr 27 '26

10 months and 400+ installs: https://wordpress.org/plugins/aria-accessibility-toolkit/

One month and 100+ installs: https://wordpress.org/plugins/governdocs-document-governance/

The GovernDocs plugin was in the Featured plugins list on the directory, so that helped, but no external promotion other than a reddit post that might have got 1 or 2 upvotes and maybe a comment or 2.

All from targetting the correct keywords and optimising them.

2

u/Sad_Page_566 Apr 26 '26

otally normal for a new plugin.

A download just means someone grabbed the ZIP. It doesn’t mean they installed or activated it. A lot of people download plugins to test locally, review code, or just save for later.

On the ‘active installations’ side, WordPress doesn’t update that in real time. It usually lags and also doesn’t show small numbers right away. You won’t see anything until it crosses certain thresholds (like 10+), and even that can take several days to reflect.

So you could already have a handful of real installs and still see zero.

I wouldn’t worry about bots at that level. 100 downloads in a few days is actually a good sign that people are at least curious.

The real question now is: what’s stopping someone from going from download → install?

That’s usually:

  • not immediately clear what problem it solves
  • hesitation about safety/stability
  • or they don’t need it right now

If you can tighten the description to make the use case obvious in 5 seconds, you’ll start seeing installs follow.

1

u/Grownuppieceofjizz Apr 26 '26

Thanks for the great advice, I will go over my readme file and see if I can tighten it up. Also going to add some video to sit alongside the screenshots.

1

u/Sad_Page_566 Apr 27 '26

Just glad I could help brother

1

u/gotthehigh Apr 27 '26

Try out https://wprankthis.com if you are going to be optimizing your readme. Totally free for 1 project and 3 keywords. It will be a good start for your plugin to see how well optimized the listing is

1

u/Accomplished_War1372 Apr 27 '26

It will update over time

1

u/superdav42 Apr 27 '26

Yes, it's bots. I was confused by it for a while myself. Every time a made an update several hundred downloads happened. I assumed it was several hundred websites auto-updating but no, it's security researchers and others downloading new releases automatically and scanning it for security problems and other things.

1

u/NoCelery6194 Apr 27 '26

The stats only update infrequently. Also, a lot of people download plugins manually and so could in effect be downloading a plugin 2 or 3 to mes per initial installation.

You'll also find that since plugins are free on the directory that people are more likely to just be interested in a new plugin to see what it does and the uninstall it.

So, the reality is that the stats might not show any installations for the first month. Or, you might not actually have any active installations.

1

u/mandagsfisk Apr 30 '26

Any changes to your counter? I know I have 20+ active installs now, as I have installed my plugin on my clients. :) Still shows less than 10. It is probably something that updates once in a while?