Plugin Categories

tl;dr Yep, search in these forums is awful but it’s not a trivial problem which is why it has not been solved years later.

Why aren’t plugins grouped by category? With fifty some thousand plugins you would think they would be.

Plugin categories is pretty subjective. What makes sense to you doesn’t make sense to me or vice versa. The keyword search sorta works.

For example https://www.ads-software.com/plugins/search/spam/ gives you hits that make sense even though there are security plugins in that query.

In July of 2017, the plugin directory was being redone, and there were discussions about the categories. I proposed that it sort of follow the admin menu items, with additional for front end topics. Not sure why, but the discussions stopped, the new directory was launched, and only small changes were done since then.
The old directory had more prominent links to Tags. The tags still exist, but they are only shown on the plugin detail page, in the sidebar.

To get something changed, you need to write a meta ticket here: https://meta.trac.www.ads-software.com/
and give details on the problem.

Yep. I hear ya. But as said in the other part of the post categories or a directory gives people ideas of plugins that are available that they didn’t know existed prior. Sure I’m going to search for plugins that I need and find them by keyword but categories open more doors.
I run a social network and because of categories on the social media directory I use I found stuff for my users that I wouldn’t have thought about before and those plugins were very effective, for example, Horoscopes.

Sure. Who is going to put them in the proper categories? Are you volunteering for that task?

Otto, yep I am. When do I start. I’ve got an idea, let’s start with all new plugins. Can’t wait to start ??