Beware of sponsoring WP themes

[xtremenitro911]

Just wanted to let every one know what happened to me. I sponsored a couple travel wordpress themes and it seems the people that built the theme and sold me the link also sell the links to Drug/pharmacy related sites so every site that uses the theme now also links to my site and a pharmacy.

And the worst part is, one of the themes, a travel theme, is used by a couple Marijuana sites. Now I have a bad neighborhood linking to my site.
So be careful doing this everyone.
I know sponsoring themes is a good way to build links over time but you never know who will be linking to you.

[dpwebmasterseo]

yes thats true..
sellers don't consider what they are linking..
most of them contain gambling links.

[Bohra]

That problem is going to remain always neone is free to use open source themes

[debunked]

What do you mean by "sponsored" themes?

[Bohra]

What do you mean by "sponsored" themes?

Sponsored theme means you pay someone to create a theme or you yourself create it and add links at the bottom and these themes are freely distributed for link building

[debunked]

OK, so the free WP themes that have the person's site linked at the bottom may also have been used for p0rn or stupid disfuction type sites. I am using a couple that have the link in the bottom, but so far not having issues ranking these sites quickly in Google.

I guess I should check the site it links to out, etc... and make sure I am not linking to a bad neighborhood.

[xtremenitro911]

What do you mean by "sponsored" themes?

All the people in the Link Sales forum here looking for sponsors for there themes. For there price they will include your link in the footer of the theme. These are free themes that they submit to WP theme sites.

[xtremenitro911]

OK, so the free WP themes that have the person's site linked at the bottom may also have been used for p0rn or stupid disfuction type sites. I am using a couple that have the link in the bottom, but so far not having issues ranking these sites quickly in Google.

I guess I should check the site it links to out, etc... and make sure I am not linking to a bad neighborhood.

YES! Always check the free themes you use on your sites. Also, buying these sponsored links puts you in danger of bad neighborhoods linking to you also.

[dpwebmasterseo]

matt cutt is against such links
weblogtoolscollection.com/archives/2007/04/12/on-sponsored-themes/

[xtremenitro911]

matt cutt is against such links
weblogtoolscollection.com/archives/2007/04/12/on-sponsored-themes/

good find. I'll be checking into that one. I did wonder how long it would take for Google to put a stop to this. Any time people find new tricks/tactics it don't take long for them to find out and put a block on it.

[dpwebmasterseo]

that's very old article, issue had been raised before 2 years ...

[xtremenitro911]

that's very old article, issue had been raised before 2 years ...

I guess this is just more of a reason not to sponsor these themes.

[5593907]

This use to be a very effective method for picking up links, but it's become outdated as Google now frowns on it. It's still very commonly done, but isn't really all that effective any more (at least in my opinion).

[bobchrist]

Thanks for making us aware about that! Best to use clean theme from wordpress.org, it has now many varieties. :)

[xtremenitro911]

Thanks for making us aware about that! Best to use clean theme from wordpress.org, it has now many varieties. :)

Ya, that's what I been doing. Less outbound links on the themes and don't have to worry about bad neighborhoods.

[dglas]

good point to highlight. can never know who will be linking to you but just hope for the best.

[linkmonkey]

You never have control over who links to you anyway.
That can't harm your site, you only get bad neighbourhood when YOU link out to bad sites. Google won't penalise you if THEY link to you.
Otherwise one of your competitors could just buy a ton of bad links into your site to harm you.

[Bohra]

You never have control over who links to you anyway.
That can't harm your site, you only get bad neighbourhood when YOU link out to bad sites. Google won't penalise you if THEY link to you.
Otherwise one of your competitors could just buy a ton of bad links into your site to harm you.

eXactly :D

[saiful-rez]

Thanks for the info.

[xtremenitro911]

You never have control over who links to you anyway.
That can't harm your site, you only get bad neighbourhood when YOU link out to bad sites. Google won't penalise you if THEY link to you.
Otherwise one of your competitors could just buy a ton of bad links into your site to harm you.

I have read some articles that say otherwise but hopefully your right. You do have a good point. However, I still won't use them cause people sell those sponsored links to pharmacy and gambling (not all of them do) and that would be linking to bad neighborhoods. I guess you could ask them to make sure they won't but as mentioned above Google is on to it and don't like it so I guess I'll give up that idea.

Thanks everyone for the discussion.

[seokingdom07]

I am really thankful for such a real info...thanx to DP members contributed to this thread.

[digitalextrememediagroup]

Their is no substitution for building your own links. No one will put pride into your site like the owner. Paid links are trouble all the way around.

[Crazihos]

The problem with this technique is that each site that has your link will have the other sponsered links in it also.

If google see's 20 sites with your link on and each of those sites also links back to site1 , site2, and site3 who have also sponsered the theme it will de-value the links as its obviously unnatural.

If you are going to sponser i guess taking the whole theme would make sense, even better just one HP link as sitewide can look a bit dodgy too.

[darkdrgn2k]

Why are scam pharmacies always the center of attention :(

Legit pharmacies just cant get a break!

[w3bmaster]

As long as you don't link to the pharmacy is ok don't worry ..

[geester1]

When I create and sell themes, I always promise NOT TO add bad neighbours, such as drug, porn or gambling sites, I guess that's why my last 2 themes on DP didnt sell!

However, I found some one who did buy them and paid 3 x the price I had them on DP for.

Link and theme sales on DP are only after 1 thing, your money and this is why you must always double check where your link is going even in blogs, as it could be in a bad neighbourhood there too.

[hard2kill]

Hello. I've been making wordpress themes for a long time now, sold a lot of themes, saw what people sponsor and here's my view about this issue. These things happen when sponsors don't look enough what are they sponsoring.

I'll show you what are some noobs doing and getting 1000$+ a month.

Auto Wordpress Theme Generator: DEMO (http://www.artisteer.com/?p=demo)

Please look at the demo carefully. What you see is that with a click of a button people create wordpress themes, and when they change the header image they also change the niche of their "theme". These themes are nothing but a little bit styled default theme.

If you are wondering who uses these themes, i'll tell you. Those are mostly black hatters, spammers, auto bloggers etc. They use these themes just because they are so easy to setup and earn some money.

To ensure your self you will get only quality backlinks you should sponsor some more complex themes. There are quite a few people here on DP that make those themes. Check some of my opened threads to see how do they look, or HPA's, dpsubi1's, wpdesigner's...i can't remember anyone else atm but there is more for sure :)

These themes are not so easy to setup, that's why only serious people use those themes and build great websites. For example, they need to post two thumbnails with different size for every post they make. Only professional bloggers will do that - that's how you get top notch backlinks!

So my advice is, look carefully what are you sponsoring and think well who might use that theme. I'm sure this way you'll get just good backlinks.

Cheers!

[ceptea]

sponsoring theme really give huge backlinks, but it can be bad neighborhood...

[xtremenitro911]

When I create and sell themes, I always promise NOT TO add bad neighbours, such as drug, porn or gambling sites, I guess that's why my last 2 themes on DP didnt sell!

However, I found some one who did buy them and paid 3 x the price I had them on DP for.

Link and theme sales on DP are only after 1 thing, your money and this is why you must always double check where your link is going even in blogs, as it could be in a bad neighbourhood there too.


Good points. Thanks for adding.

Hello. I've been making wordpress themes for a long time now, sold a lot of themes, saw what people sponsor and here's my view about this issue. These things happen when sponsors don't look enough what are they sponsoring.

I'll show you what are some noobs doing and getting 1000$+ a month.

Auto Wordpress Theme Generator: DEMO (http://www.artisteer.com/?p=demo)

Please look at the demo carefully. What you see is that with a click of a button people create wordpress themes, and when they change the header image they also change the niche of their "theme". These themes are nothing but a little bit styled default theme.

If you are wondering who uses these themes, i'll tell you. Those are mostly black hatters, spammers, auto bloggers etc. They use these themes just because they are so easy to setup and earn some money.

To ensure your self you will get only quality backlinks you should sponsor some more complex themes. There are quite a few people here on DP that make those themes. Check some of my opened threads to see how do they look, or HPA's, dpsubi1's, wpdesigner's...i can't remember anyone else atm but there is more for sure :)

These themes are not so easy to setup, that's why only serious people use those themes and build great websites. For example, they need to post two thumbnails with different size for every post they make. Only professional bloggers will do that - that's how you get top notch backlinks!

So my advice is, look carefully what are you sponsoring and think well who might use that theme. I'm sure this way you'll get just good backlinks.

Cheers!

Everyone makes good points. I also knew that theme creators would also have something to say about this. lol
You do bring up some good points, however, you mentioned only good themes that are harder to use get better sites. This is not always true, most of the time yes, but I just built a site and did not notice the footer until it was done, my mistake even after posting this (lesson learned), but it was a nice complicated theme and took me a while to finish. After I was done I noticed casino links in the footer. That sucks really bad cause I put a lot of work into it and don't want to rebuild it. So now I have been trying to contact the creator of the theme and ask how much to remove but get no answers.


Bottom line is if your going to use these themes check them first!! I can't believe I made the mistake even after posting this thread. It was a good, complicated theme from a larger more popular theme builder and still got crappy links.
I know everybody needs to make money but people selling these should not link to these bad neighborhoods. I mean, people are not going to use your theme if it links to these places.

If your going to buy these footer links, in my opinion and from what I have heard google is on to it so there worthless, make sure you ask the creator if they will be linking to any bad neighborhoods.

Hope all this helps some people out. It's been a long thread and many people posted there opinion so thank you all.

[hard2kill]

No the problem is this. If you get backlinks from casino/adult/warez sites that is bad. But if you have 1-5 links TO that kind of sites it won't do anything bad. Digital point is full of these links, facebook is full of those links, etc etc. and google didn't do anything to them. I have two sites with 3 warez links in blog roll for 2 years but i'm still ranked high on google and never had a problem.

I strongly belive having few links to non family friendly sites can't do anything bad...there are so much examples and none that can prove the oposite ;)

I'm mostly angry on these artisteer guys that earn a lot of money in 10 minutes, and lead their sponsors to disaster while some talanted wp theme designers work 48h+ on one quality theme and get nothing...

Regards.

[xtremenitro911]

I think you may have that backwords.

"If you get backlinks from casino/adult/warez sites that is bad"
Google can not discredit you for that cause people would just buy a bunch of bad links for there competitors.

"But if you have 1-5 links TO that kind of sites it won't do anything bad."

And definitely wrong about linking to bad sites. Linking to these site is not good.
http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?answer=35769#design"# Don't participate in link schemes designed to increase your site's ranking or PageRank. In particular, avoid links to web spammers or "bad neighborhoods" on the web, as your own ranking may be affected adversely by those links."


"I'm mostly angry on these artisteer guys that earn a lot of money in 10 minutes, and lead their sponsors to disaster while some talanted wp theme designers work 48h+ on one quality theme and get nothing..."

That I completely understand.


No the problem is this. If you get backlinks from casino/adult/warez sites that is bad. But if you have 1-5 links TO that kind of sites it won't do anything bad. Digital point is full of these links, facebook is full of those links, etc etc. and google didn't do anything to them. I have two sites with 3 warez links in blog roll for 2 years but i'm still ranked high on google and never had a problem.

I strongly belive having few links to non family friendly sites can't do anything bad...there are so much examples and none that can prove the oposite ;)

I'm mostly angry on these artisteer guys that earn a lot of money in 10 minutes, and lead their sponsors to disaster while some talanted wp theme designers work 48h+ on one quality theme and get nothing...

Regards.

[hard2kill]

""If you get backlinks from casino/adult/warez sites that is bad"
Google can not discredit you for that cause people would just buy a bunch of bad links for there competitors."

I think in that case google will count the good vs. bad links to a site.

"And definitely wrong about linking to bad sites. Linking to these site is not good.
http://www.google.com/support/webmas...r=35769#design"# Don't participate in link schemes designed to increase your site's ranking or PageRank. In particular, avoid links to web spammers or "bad neighborhoods" on the web, as your own ranking may be affected adversely by those links.""

Yes web spammers :) But that doesn't mean you can't have links to casino or related sites...you think spammers sponsor themes? =D

Again i say, there is thousands of examples it doesn't affect and on the other hand there are none to prove the oposite ;)

[xtremenitro911]

Well, I respect your opinion but from what I have read you should not link to gambling, adult or pharmacy.

That was quoted from Google, they say spammers yes but also say do not link to bad neighborhoods.

[hard2kill]

I talked with a lot of experts about that sentence and most of them agreed when google says "bad neighborhoods" they think link directories that ask reciprocal link...that doesn't mean directories that don't ask that are good :D

The reason i trust this theory is that i never saw some1 had anyproblems for having gambling links, inlcuding my self. However, I respect your opinion too...

EDIT: this site talks about those links: LINK (http://www.searchenginepromotionhelp.com/m/articles/search-engine-problems/bad-neighborhood-links.php)

I think this is not offtopic cause we discuss what's in footer of wp themes.

[dogtraining-guides.com]

well, here is my case study:

One domain that I have never submited to directories, not article dirs.
The only link building I have ever done is sponsor 10 wordpress themes.
I rank on page 1 for 3 of the anchor text I use.

The other side of the story:
If I want to screw my competition, I would find 20 pharma/drugs/porn/chinese...bs themes, sponsor using my competition's anchor text and url and...

What is the truth? Ask the higher powers(eg google, matt cutts...)

Not a clue

[hard2kill]

Well you have to do a lot more then that, that's just the part of it hahaha...and the second part is very hardly done :D ...I'm not even sure links from pharma/drugs/porn/chinese sites can do bad as long as they are not link farms or spammers ;)

[xtremenitro911]

well, here is my case study:

One domain that I have never submited to directories, not article dirs.
The only link building I have ever done is sponsor 10 wordpress themes.
I rank on page 1 for 3 of the anchor text I use.

The other side of the story:
If I want to screw my competition, I would find 20 pharma/drugs/porn/chinese...bs themes, sponsor using my competition's anchor text and url and...

What is the truth? Ask the higher powers(eg google, matt cutts...)

Not a clue

ya linking to those sites is not good. It says it on the page I linked to above.

[xtremenitro911]

Well you have to do a lot more then that, that's just the part of it hahaha...and the second part is very hardly done :D ...I'm not even sure links from pharma/drugs/porn/chinese sites can do bad as long as they are not link farms or spammers ;)

well google wants relevant links so if your site is related it will do you some good but if not it won't. i have been doing a lot of reading since the first time you posted and I'm finding a lot of people saying not to link to gambling,adult or pharmacy related sites.

IDK, I guess only Google knows. Lol :)

[hard2kill]

Yes...i read those discussions for few years :D but i call all those - empty stories :/ You are right..only google knows, but i'll stick to the fact nobody was penalised for having ambling,adult, pharmacy etc. links on their sites as long as it is at least a little bit related :)

[engedi05]

Just wanted to let every one know what happened to me. I sponsored a couple travel wordpress themes and it seems the people that built the theme and sold me the link also sell the links to Drug/pharmacy related sites so every site that uses the theme now also links to my site and a pharmacy.

And the worst part is, one of the themes, a travel theme, is used by a couple Marijuana sites. Now I have a bad neighborhood linking to my site.
So be careful doing this everyone.
I know sponsoring themes is a good way to build links over time but you never know who will be linking to you.

that is really a very bad experience for you of course. thanks for the advice.

[xtremenitro911]

that is really a very bad experience for you of course. thanks for the advice.

Your welcome. Be sure to check them before using.:)

[asmodeus]

I'm with "hard2kill" on this one. First, I own several porn sites and have had no problem ranking well in the big G with any of them. Second, there was a guy on DP looking for links to his pharmacy site, so I gave him footer links on some of my "dead" sites (non porn) figuring there was no loss there anyway, and now those sites are actually doing BETTER in the search results than they were before. Weird, I know.

I think it comes down to the amount of links you have. Link farms are bad. We've established that. But if you use a theme for your site that happens to have one or two links in the footer to what you might consider a "bad" site, I don't think any harm will come to you. Maybe it would be bad if you had dozens of bad outgoing links, but 1 or 2 wont make any difference. That's been my experience.

[xtremenitro911]

Thanks for your thoughts asmodeus. Hopefully you guy's are right and having the link in the footer of my site won't hurt it.
I don't see it myself but hopefully your right.

[.SR]

That's another reason I hardly buy sponsored link in WP theme.

.SR