I was about to pay $500 for a sponsored review on one of the big WordPress blogs.
Before I did, I decided to check whether they actually move the needle.
I spent three weeks pulling Wayback Machine snapshots for 24 plugins across 5 WordPress review sites — tracking active install counts before and after each review published.
The results were not what I expected.
Methodology
For each plugin I followed the same process:
- Find the exact publication date of the review
- Pull a Wayback Machine snapshot of the WordPress.org plugin page from just before the review
- Pull snapshots from 2–4 weeks after, then 2–6 months after
- Compare install counts
Same process. 24 plugins. 5 blogs.
WP Mayor — 6 Plugins
Paid placements range from $250 to $750. All content is disclosed as paid — that transparency is commendable.
Results: 4 zero impact, 1 possible small bump (~120 installs), 1 no change.
I contacted WP Mayor CEO Mark Zahra before publishing. He responded in detail. His main point was fair: their clients usually sell premium plugins where conversions happen through direct sales, not WordPress.org installs. The free install count isn't a metric they track or promise. I included his full response in the original article.
Barn2 — 2 Plugins
Sponsored content starts at $499. But the most interesting data comes from Barn2's own transparency reports — sponsored content revenue dropped 82% in one year ($4,883 to $894). They've since removed the advertising page from their site.
Results: 1 zero impact, 1 decline.
ThemeIsle — 5 Plugins
They explicitly refuse paid reviews: "We do not interfere with their work and cannot accept sponsored review/link requests."
Results: organic listicle, some plugins showed modest consistent growth.
The only site with any positive signal — and they don't sell reviews.
WPExplorer — 5 Plugins
Results: 3 zero impact, 2 declined.
One declining plugin hadn't been updated in 4 years — so that's a plugin problem, not a review problem.
LearnWoo — 3 Plugins
Operated by WebToffee, a company that also sells its own plugins on the same blog.
Results: 2 zero impact, 1 growing — but growth started well before the review published.
Summary
| Blog | Tracked | Zero impact | Possible bump | Declined |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| WP Mayor | 6 | 4 | 1 | 0 |
| Barn2 | 2 | 1 | 0 | 1 |
| ThemeIsle | 5 | 5 | 0 | 0 |
| WPExplorer | 5 | 3 | 0 | 2 |
| LearnWoo | 3 | 2 | 0 | 0 |
| Total | 21 | 15 | 1 | 3 |
Why Doesn't It Work?
Most WordPress users discover plugins through WordPress.org search or the admin dashboard — not blog articles. WP Mayor has ~16k monthly visitors. WordPress.org gets millions. The path from "reading a review" to "installing" has too many steps and too much friction.
What Does Work?
Based on building Queryra — an AI search plugin for WordPress and WooCommerce:
- WordPress.org readme.txt SEO — this is where most installs come from
- Organic mentions in curated lists — ThemeIsle's data backs this up
- Direct community presence — Reddit, Facebook groups, developer forums
Paid editorial placements don't appear in the data.
Full Research
All individual plugin data, methodology details, and Mark Zahra's full response are in the original article:
