Wordpress Theme Users, Be Aware

by Karoli on November 12, 2006

Shelley Powers posted a warning about ‘gotchas’ with certain WP themes last week.

However, I found a gotcha with one WP theme today. One of the more popular WP themes is Water 1.1. Like all themes, the creator is listed in small print at the bottom, usually with a link to the creator’s web site. This linkage is more than a fair price for the use of the theme. However, at least with this theme and who knows how many others (quite a few from this Google search), there’s a link to a theme sponsor, in this case a site selling poker tables.

She also gives steps for removing the sponsor link from the template, so you don’t give any free advertising to poker sites or anyone other than the theme creator, and goes on to give a really wonderful explanation of why links in templates, as well as posts, matter.

Technorati Tags: wordpress, themes, blog, blogging, advertising links

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DrDental

I'm certainly not an advocate of link sponsors on themes and templates. That's just a cheap way for someone to get a link in my opinion. However, if a template designer/developer wants to include a sponsor link in their footer then who is to stop them?

I am also, however, not an advocate of removing links in the footer of someone else's work - regardless of your moral stance. If you don't like the link sponsor, don't use the theme. It really is that simple. In some cases, it may even be illegal to remove the link. I know it seems petty, but people do take it seriously.

Just my 2 cents.

toomuchspam

www.bloggingthemes.com touts free WordPress themes, some if not all of which are based on existing themes, with small-print footer php links to "sponsors." One such footer link, in the Graffiti theme, goes to mesothelmiomahealth.org after passing through another url.