WordPress.com Plugin Pages Add Download Link for Using Plugins on Self-Hosted Sites – WP Tavern

WordPress.com plugin pages have been up to date to incorporate a obtain hyperlink for WordPress.org plugins listed within the .com listing. These are the listings which are scraped from WordPress.org. The plugins can be found totally free on WordPress.org for self-hosted websites however can solely be used on WordPress.com with a paid subscription.

The textual content within the sidebar features a hyperlink to an article explaining the distinction between WordPress.org and WordPress.com. It seems on each the logged-out and logged-in views:

This plugin is on the market for obtain for use in your WordPress self-hosted set up.

Themes hosted on WordPress.com have an analogous discover with a hyperlink to obtain the theme and apply it to a self-hosted web site.

This modification comes as the results of builders raising concerns about WordPress.com plugin listings outranking WordPress.org on Google Search in some cases. Throughout that dialogue, many builders had been shocked to study that their plugins created for WordPress.org had been additionally listed on WordPress.com as solely accessible with a paid subscription. Patchstack responded by updating its readme file to make sure that WordPress.com customers and guests are made conscious that the plugin is on the market totally free within the official WordPress plugin repository. This response might not be mandatory now, except builders wish to embrace a direct hyperlink to their plugins.

In a discussion on Post Status Slack, some plugin builders stated they would favor a hyperlink to the precise plugin web page the place they will see and take part in opinions. The omission of a hyperlink again to WordPress.org could also be intentional, as it will take customers off of the .com web site, which doesn’t facilitate clients upgrading to paid plans so as to use plugins.

Some builders had additionally requested Automattic CEO Matt Mullenweg to noindex these pages, however he stated that WordPress.com customers must also be capable of search Google for the listings.

Some builders have requested to know what proportion of their energetic installs come from WordPress.com vs. WordPress.org, or different internet hosting platforms. Mullenweg stated there are at the moment no reviews for this however that the information might be attention-grabbing.

“If individuals are offering extra distribution to unaltered plugins, I feel that’s nice,” Mullenweg stated throughout the dialogue final week. “Pleased for all our plugins to be duplicated and distributed by each host and web site on the planet.”

When requested if WordPress.org might extract the information for recognized plugin distributors, like WordPress.com, Mullenweg said, “.com or another host might share plugin information if it’s allowed by their privateness coverage. Additionally it’s pretty trivial to get plugin information from crawling websites.”