Check for Plugins that are no longer in the Plugin Directory
February 4, 2015If a plugin gets pulled from the official plugin directory on WordPress.org there could be several reasons for that. Could be that it just became obsolete when a new version of WordPress introduced the features it provided, could be that the developer just stopped developing it, but it could have also been deleted because serious security issues were detected with the plugin. No matter what the reason was, it means you no longer get update notifications and could potentially run into security risks later on.
Today i discovered this little plugin which checks for plugins no longer in the directory and tested it on a local copy of a client site. In addition to removed plugins it also displays if a plugin wasn’t updated in more than two years, which is also nice to know. Keep in mind that this doesn’t give you perfect safety, a plugin can still be in the directory and be outdated or insecure. But if it was removed it’s definitely a good idea to investigate further and to check for alternatives.