I've got a free template and have modified it the way I see fit. However there is a link at the bottom of my site that I cannot get rid of. Its a wordpress template and its at the bottom. thanks
What's your website url? And also what is the code to your footer.php file since most likely that's what needs to be changed.
this is a copyright link you can't remove legally. as a wordpress theme designer, i will contact your hosting and Google Adsnese team to disable your account accordingly.
The reason the templates are free is the footer link usually at the least has a link back to the designer. It is wrong, legally wrong, to eliminate any links found on footers. Though you can with no problem eliminate any linkbacks to wordpress itself.
Yeah as already mentioned someone has paid for those links to be displayed. This allows the designer to create these themes and offer them for free
as a question : i know well that it's not allowed to remove the copyright link , but is it allowed to add nofollow attribute to outgoing link to protect PR ?
I don't think that it's legally wrong, it is most definitely ethically wrong. I have never seen or heard anyone being sued or taken to small claims court or something like that for removing the designer's link in the footer. People do that stuff all the time. I'm not saying it's right, but I just don't think that it's legally wrong to do so.
A lot of theme authors allow the link to be removed, some don't, always respect your author's wishes. It should tell you either in the footer.php as a comment, in the readme, or on the site you downloaded it from which of these applies but if in doubt just ask.
It depends on the designer. But as already said, most theme designers create free themes for self promotion of their products and others. You should find the theme documentation and see if you can ethically/legally remove that link
exactly Jewmark is right if you problem doesn't solve then pm me i will brief you in detail about it.