Did anyone have a good experience in getting to the top of search engines by building backlinks from free themes ?
Used to be a good idea, but Google is now penalizing sites sponsoring themes. They look at it as buying links.
As i think, to get backlink can be good for increasing traffic on your website but from ranking point of view, it's not very good.
I hate it when people speak about it without proper proof and/or back-up. I develop themes regularly and I do well with links from them. Basically it depends on what you are linking back as. When ever I develop themes, I make sure I stick on to the theme of the THEME .. what I mean to say is, if I develop a racing theme, I'd link back to a "Racing site" as a sponsor rather than to a "how to get rid of Acne" site ! Most of the downloads also will be relevant for niche themes and it surely ads value to the site !! I'm speaking about it from my personal experience and no assumptions made here. Regards, /G
Looks like I hit a nerve. Please excuse me good sir. I'm all for making money out of Wordpress themes, heck I've even considered it before. But the fact still remains that sponsoring themes will hurt you in the long run SEOwise. Even if the link is relevant, it's still paid. You might not get noticed at first, but when a competitor sees your paid link, poof! Your ranking is gone. Now, I'm for paid links too, you know. But I don't sponsor links for the simple fact that it can easily be detected by humans and spiders alike. For some interesting read about this topic, please see the following links: http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/by-the-way-2/ http://weblogtoolscollection.com/archives/2007/04/12/on-sponsored-themes/
Nah Rivers you din do any harm ... If you read through : www.mattcutts.com/blog/text-links-and-pagerank you'll find : "...let me talk about why we consider it outside our guidelines to get PageRank via buying links. Google (and pretty much every other major search engine) uses hyperlinks to help determine reputation. Links are usually editorial votes given by choice, and link-based analysis has greatly improved the quality of web search. Selling links muddies the quality of link-based reputation and makes it harder for many search engines (not just Google) to return relevant results. When the Berkeley college newspaper has six online gambling links (three casinos, two for poker, and one bingo) on its front page, it’s harder for search engines to know which links can be trusted...." is their main concern ... and also you'll notice... "...“The best links are not paid, or exchanged after out-of-the-blue emails–the best links are earned and given by choice.†..." Now as a buyer its your duty to make sure you get the best and make sure you make it look natural as possible. As I told you, I have a Design comp, and when I release a theme I make sure I get credits by leaving a link behind. Now if it's done in an "ethical" way everything looks and will be right, even the SEOwise. If Matt really thinks it is unethical then probably he should take of the "Footer.php" of Wordpress or at the least take the link off to wordpress.org in the footer.php of basic theme or make it no follow and do the same with sidebar links under 'meta' in the default themes!! SE's are not smart as humans. Sit down and jolt down the points which point any link as "SPAM", don't follow that practice. Be innovative, like may be requesting the theme owner to leave a link in the footer only from the main page and you'll score well with SE's . My 2 cents, /G
So the smart thing to do is be a smart buyer rather than just buying in bulk and also building links slowly rather than trying to get millions of links overnight. btw, good threads which add value to your discussion. Repped you . /G
Build back links slowly and ensure your back link strategy is not just links from themes. Don't over do it. You need to have a right mixture and should be poised evenly. Anything done rapid may raise a flag in G's system. /G
wat is it exactly?? getting links from themes? i haven't heard about themes? what are they? can anybody pls explain
Themes means Word Press Themes or CSS Templates.They are spread over the net for free and when a user use this theme/template on there site, we can get backlinks.
@Kontent.solutions Good points you brought up. It's just that IMO, if I'm to buy links I won't sponsor themes. It's too risky and again, easily detectable. Thanks for the rep and best of luck