Pavel Ciorici

Building WordPress products at @WPZOOM 👉 flagship theme 👉 🥑 Best Recipe Plugin @recipeblock 👉

[Pavel Ciorici @ciorici]

@levelsio new collection dropping soon?

[Pavel Ciorici @ciorici]

Who vibe-coded this?
https://t.co/9E9fDJXRe4

[Pavel Ciorici @ciorici]

@themergency The algorithm for the theme directory is not publicly available. Only the one for plugins is known, partially, I think.

If you are on the Post Status Slack, you can read an explanation about that from @dd32:
https://t.co/iudURbyCoC

[Pavel Ciorici @ciorici]

I cannot prove manipulation, but after tracking https://t.co/HJI4cPFo8o theme rankings for a long time, some movements are statistically hard to justify.

Several themes on the first 3 pages of the Popular Themes list repeatedly gain or lose 6 to 16 positions while showing the same characteristics:

- no updates for 1 to 2 years
- almost no reviews or a few bad ones
- no support topics

Examples:
https://t.co/jNdnSP9fT8
https://t.co/qjuN3JDdan
https://t.co/iHj168gqgp
https://t.co/DcyTqY6rPz
https://t.co/POXOk4hIOB

When you compare these side by side with neighboring themes in the rankings, the difference is obvious. Those other themes typically have frequent updates, dozens or hundreds of reviews, and active support forums.

Anyone who has built and maintained a WordPress theme knows how hard it actually is to climb this list. It takes years of consistent updates, ongoing support work, good reviews, and steady adoption.

Adding third-party usage data makes this even harder to explain.
Inspiro (my theme) has ~70k active installs on https://t.co/hQD78TJxUM and is detected on ~10,000 real websites according to https://t.co/y1lq6ge0lm.
Envo Royal has ~30k installs, yet is detected on only ~370 real websites ⚠️.

An enormous gap like this suggests that “active installs” do not reliably correlate with real-world usage.

At this point, a review of how these themes' jumps occur would help clarify whether the Popular list reflects real adoption, especially when compared to themes with active users and ongoing maintenance.

[Pavel Ciorici @ciorici]

@sama sometimes I start typing the prompt in ChatGPT as soon as the page opens, but then it lags for 0.3ms, and my prompt gets deleted. Can you fix that, please?

[Pavel Ciorici @ciorici]

@helpscout can you please respect the line breaks in copied text from ChatGPT?

[Pavel Ciorici @ciorici]

*It's 4 authors, actually.

Forgot these ones with themes dropping from 20k to 2k:
https://t.co/zBGF5XyZ7O
https://t.co/WLZxRZOqL5

[Pavel Ciorici @ciorici]

So, if all themes from 2 specific authors suddenly drop from 30k installs to 4k, does that mean anything at all?

Why does this happen only to these suspicious authors?

I've never seen something like this happen to other popular themes that are clearly used on real websites, have reviews, support threads, etc.

You can still see today's install count vs yesterday's here:
https://t.co/jNdnSP9fT8
vs
https://t.co/1AQ9VwxU7t

[Pavel Ciorici @ciorici]

I cannot prove manipulation, but after tracking https://t.co/HJI4cPFo8o theme rankings for a long time, some movements are statistically hard to justify.

Several themes on the first 3 pages of the Popular Themes list repeatedly gain or lose 6 to 16 positions while showing the same characteristics:

- no updates for 1 to 2 years
- almost no reviews or a few bad ones
- no support topics

Examples:
https://t.co/jNdnSP9fT8
https://t.co/qjuN3JDdan
https://t.co/iHj168gqgp
https://t.co/DcyTqY6rPz
https://t.co/POXOk4hIOB

When you compare these side by side with neighboring themes in the rankings, the difference is obvious. Those other themes typically have frequent updates, dozens or hundreds of reviews, and active support forums.

Anyone who has built and maintained a WordPress theme knows how hard it actually is to climb this list. It takes years of consistent updates, ongoing support work, good reviews, and steady adoption.

Adding third-party usage data makes this even harder to explain.
Inspiro (my theme) has ~70k active installs on https://t.co/hQD78TJxUM and is detected on ~10,000 real websites according to https://t.co/y1lq6ge0lm.
Envo Royal has ~30k installs, yet is detected on only ~370 real websites ⚠️.

An enormous gap like this suggests that “active installs” do not reliably correlate with real-world usage.

At this point, a review of how these themes' jumps occur would help clarify whether the Popular list reflects real adoption, especially when compared to themes with active users and ongoing maintenance.

[Pavel Ciorici @ciorici]

Envo One Theme:

Yesterday: 20.000 installs
Today: 2000 installs

https://t.co/bQCMgJGZeU
https://t.co/YX2TbKqhi2

[Pavel Ciorici @ciorici]

The same goes for a bunch of other themes EnvoThemes and Jegstudio:

Unibiz theme: 3k today, 20k yesterday
https://t.co/pYeChFvBOe
vs
https://t.co/7gHqL0RkOc

[Pavel Ciorici @ciorici]

Bring the old badges back pls

[Pavel Ciorici @ciorici]

Might need to A/B test the screenshot of the Inspiro theme with this one :)
https://t.co/xUtg10cXqz

[Pavel Ciorici @ciorici]

@GoranCulibrk I was already selling a different product on the same website, so I decided to use the same Stripe account.

[Pavel Ciorici @ciorici]

One less thing to vibe-code on my plate.

Wondering if this kills plugins like AWB
https://t.co/F5yz0d5XiC

[WPZOOM @wpzoom]

🎥 Starting with WordPress 7.0, you can use YouTube or Vimeo videos as Cover block backgrounds, with autoplay support.

[Pavel Ciorici @ciorici]

$33k ARR so far for this tool.

[Pavel Ciorici @ciorici]

My new SaaS is already at $ 14,544 ARR after just two months since launching it in August. 🤷‍♂️
I guess I'll continue to listen to users' feedback and vibe-code new features for it.

[Pavel Ciorici @ciorici]

Inspiro Lite just keeps getting better and faster 💪

https://t.co/xUtg10cXqz

[WPZOOM @wpzoom]

We’ve added 6 new Block Demos to the free Inspiro Lite theme and the Inspiro Starter Sites plugin, bringing the total to 19 ready-to-import websites 🚀

If you’re looking for a fast and lightweight WordPress theme, look no further 👀

Theme:
https://t.co/TuIvw61s9d
Starter Sites:
https://t.co/CpJg9iobhY

[Pavel Ciorici @ciorici]

I guess I'm a contributor now 😎
https://t.co/cP3UHWje6P

[Pavel Ciorici @ciorici]

Last one for today 😅 I need to sleep now.

[WPZOOM @wpzoom]

🚨 New Demo Alert!

The 51st starter site for Inspiro Premium is here: Fine Dining Restaurant 🍽️

An elegant new demo built for restaurants, chefs, wine bars, and luxury dining experiences.

Menu showcases, chef highlights, and reservation CTAs, all powered by the Block Editor.

👉 https://t.co/tqUKxNOFHK

[Pavel Ciorici @ciorici]

@mattmedeiros @syedbalkhi Those are two relevant products (a food blog theme and a recipe plugin).
Cross-promoting your own products isn't what I was talking about, and you know it.

[Pavel Ciorici @ciorici]

WP Twitter lately:

1. @syedbalkhi announces a new vibe-coded WordPress product
2. His partners tweet that they've already been using it for weeks
3. @syedbalkhi retweets all of them
4. The loop repeats infinitely ♾️

[Pavel Ciorici @ciorici]

@mattmedeiros @syedbalkhi Your point? Claude Design was released in April :)
This demo was created a few months ago.