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Jetpack 7.2.1 Removes Promotions for Paid Upgrades from the Plugin Search Screen

Earlier this month, Jetpack 7.1 added suggestions to the plugin search screen, a controversial change that has sparked debate this week. When users search for a plugin that matches a term for an existing Jetpack feature, the plugin now inserts an artificial, dismissible search result into the first plugin card slot, identifying the corresponding Jetpack feature.

The Jetpack team said users have a hard time knowing what features are available, with 45 modules packaged into the plugin. The idea behind the proof of concept for the suggestions was to improve the discoverability of Jetpack’s existing features. Many in the developer community became outraged after it was discovered that Jetpack was also advertising paid upgrades in this space as well.

The fact that it was rolled out with promotions for paid upgrades made it seem to many onlookers that the discoverability problem was just a pretext for injecting advertising. The WordPress Plugin Team also said it may or may not be a violation of the plugin directory guidelines but that the team was still “arguing about the semantics internally.”

Version 7.2.1 was released today, removing all feature suggestions that previously advertised upgrades.

“We made a mistake, and we’re moving to correct it immediately,” Jetpack team representative Jesse Friedman said. “Our intention with these feature hints is to help you discover helpful features of Jetpack that you already have, right when you need them most. Today we’re correcting an error in judgement that resulted in the hints suggesting Jetpack features that actually required an upgrade.”

Characterizing the mistake as “an error in judgment” is an admission that rolling out feature suggestions with paid upgrades was a conscious decision. One month later, the Jetpack team decided it was a poor choice. This appears to have be driven by the community’s reaction, but Jetpack did not elaborate on how or why they reached the decision to revert the promotions for paid upgrades.

Jetpack 7.2.1 Updates Design for “Hints,” Plans to Adopt WordPress Core Solution in the Future

The 7.2.1 maintenance release also changes the design for the feature suggestions, which they are now referring to as “Feature Hints.”

“We’re reducing confusion around feature hints by simplifying the design and changing some text; this way it’s clear that feature hints are from Jetpack and are easily dismissible,” Friedman said.

After updating to the latest release, you can see the revised design on the plugin search screen with new text: “This suggestion was made by Jetpack, the security and performance plugin already installed on your site.” Jetpack will disable the hints once administrators have dismissed three hints.

“Going forward we want to help create a feature hints solution that works for all WordPress users and plugin developers,” Friedman said. “We are excited to work with suggestions like this one, by Joost de Valk, and see how we might be able to find a solution in WordPress core to help users discover plugin features, and prevent this very common issue. Once a core solution is available, we plan to adopt it for Jetpack.”

Developers who still do not want to see any sort of feature hint when searching for plugins can use the jetpackcom_remove_search_hints filter to turn it off. Users can also install the Hide Jetpack Promotions plugin as an alternative.

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Jetpack Is Promoting Paid Upgrades on Plugin Search Screen, WordPress Plugin Team Says it “May be a Violation” of Directory Guidelines

Yesterday the discussion surrounding Jetpack’s implementation of feature suggestions in the plugin search screen became heated after developers pointed out that Automattic is also using these suggestions to promote paid upgrades. You can test this by searching for “backups” where you find that Jetpack’s commercial offering takes the place of the first result, pushing all other results further down one slot.

The feature suggestions were added in versions 7.1 to inform users of an existing feature in Jetpack when they search for something similar. The Jetpack team said they developed it to solve a discovery problem, where users are quite often not familiar with all of Jetpack’s 45 modules and end up installing plugins to perform functionality that Jetpack already includes. A PR in the Jetpack repository has been merged to only show feature suggestions when the user’s plan supports it, so it looks like these promotions for commercial features will be removed in a future release of the plugin.

It’s not clear whether Automattic intentionally rolled out the feature suggestions in its current form (with paid upgrades included) to test the waters and gauge the community’s reaction, or if it is simply a mistake. The PR was marked as an enhancement, not a bug.

According to Plugin Team member Samuel “Otto” Wood, feature suggestions with paid upgrades included is “likely a violation” of the plugin directory’s guidelines.

“Promoting other plugins or premium upgrades in the same space would likely not be allowed, because it would be misleading or an incorrect place to put ‘advertising,’ Wood said. “Guidelines already say not to do that.”

I contacted the Plugin Team today and it seems the topic of feature suggestions on the plugin screen are still a matter of ongoing debate. The team would not officially confirm whether or not Jetpack is currently in violation.

“I can’t confirm that at this time,” Mika Epstein said. “It might be a violation, but it also may not be. Much of that comes down to intent.

“A case can be made that they’re promoting paid services for existing features, and is that different from an image-optimizer plugin promoting it’s own service which you’re already using? It’s not like they’re promoting separate plugins, so it’s in a very odd grey area for services.”

Epstein said the team is “still arguing the semantics internally about that one.”

Many people have asked why Jetpack has not been removed from the plugin directory for advertising its commercial offerings on the plugin screen. The Plugin Team’s official response is that if Jetpack is in violation, they reserve the right to make an exception and opt not to close it. Epstein, on behalf of the team, offered the following statement:

It falls under our 18th guideline:

We reserve the right to NOT close a plugin and grant exceptions.

Closing plugins is ALWAYS a tricky thing. We regularly warn, and do not close, larger plugins as closing them would have an adverse impact on the entire WordPress community. Closing plugins with 500,000 users can be more harmful than helpful, even when there are security problems. The more users a plugin gets, the more difficult it is to weigh the risks of closing versus not closing.

Maintaining the trust in larger plugins is as important as doing so with the directory as a whole. With so many outlets wanting to spin up FUD and blast outrage at everyone involved as their first reaction, we try to stem the tide a little and not act like the sky is falling all the time.

Jetpack has more than 5 million active installs. If it is found to be in violation of the guidelines, it is not likely to be removed due to the impact it would have on millions of WordPress users, not to mention the hosts who have it pre-installed on WordPress hosting plans.

The discussion regarding how WordPress can improve the implementation of feature suggestions on the plugin screen for all plugins is happening in a ticket on trac opened by Joost de Valk. This ticket does not debate whether or not feature suggestions are a good idea in general but rather focuses on how results can better communicate that a feature is already active or available. de Valk shared a screenshot of what the screen currently looks like when a user searches for a plugin for which they already have a match installed:

“The disabled ‘Active’ button there is not very useful, as it doesn’t provide any context as to why that button is disabled,” de Valk said. “I’d like to propose a change: let’s turn this into two separate groups of results, one that says ‘these plugins you already have installed might be able to help’ and then a second group below that with other plugins.”

Tim Hengeveld posted a mockup of what an implementation of that might look like:

The topic of feature suggestions on this screen is still highly controversial, despite the Plugin Team confirming that it is not breaking the guidelines (as long as plugins don’t promote paid upgrades). Plugin authors have worked for years towards better rankings on this screen by providing quality support and updates that translate into better ratings and more installs. Any mega plugin that offers multiple modules packed into one can easily usurp these rankings by suggesting its own features and having them automatically appear in that top slot. These features could even be broken down into multiple micro-modules so that there is always something to suggest.

Many in the WordPress development community are worried that plugin authors will move towards distributing their work as large suites of modules in order to take advantage of promoting their own features in the plugin search screen. This seems even more likely with block developers releasing massive collections of Gutenberg blocks.

WordPress.org is at a crossroads here that may open the floodgates to plugin authors looking to leverage this screen to their own advantage. Jetpack’s move to suggest its own features on this screen, instead of opting for an admin notice or using its own dashboard, is going to have a major ripple effect throughout the plugin ecosystem that has the potential to change how plugins are packaged, distributed, and marketed.