Attention to all the wordpress theme designers / link buyers

goood post jinsona, lamers will always exist

 

Okay, another alert for designers -
blinger.org


This guy replaces designer links with India real estate and some other sites/link they decided to promote free at the cost of our work. My client reported one theme on that site to their host and today I am going to do the same to the rest of the themes but looks like it worked good already since NONE of the demos are working anymore (didnt check the download yet).

I just made a post about it on my blog yesterday, I got really p*ssed off when my private blog's theme was ripped, people really have no shame anymore, i can live with the fact that there will always be users using the free themes on their blogs and getting rid of the credits, i don't justify it, but it's just a fact to accept, you can't go fighting and monitoring the whole world, but to take a theme (that has never been released as a free theme, nor anything of the same structure was) directly from my site is really beyond any shame.

Regarding wpthemesfree.com adding links..

I personally don't see what so many people are getting angry at them because of it. First, if you don't upload the theme yourself and agree to have their link added, they WON'T add your theme by themselves, so it's 100% up to you. Secondly, we all know very well that most download count starts too flow in when a theme goes up on wpthemesfree, so we (designers) DO benefit from our themes being distributed on their site. They could charge a small submission fee, and I am sure people would have accepted it (I would), instead they just add a link. freewordpressthemes.com dont add links, but visit their website, all themes on front page have 0-2 downloads, while on wpthemesfree u see some themes have over 300 downloads. Again, I don't say it's the best idea, but my guess is that with their downloads and traffic volume they host on a dedicated server and don't sell massive ads space on their site despite being PR7, so just like no one would advertise you for free on a super popular website, why would they do this service for no indirect benefit for them.

If they were dropped in SERPs , it's probably because like John Chow, they were spamming the SE with SAME competitive keyword. Chow was overflooding the net with "making money online", and wpthemesfree do the same with "free wordpress themes" (or similar), once someone starting to heavily compete over popular keyword, they are likely to get penalized. It looks unnatural by SE and hence gets kicked out. It has nothing to do with
wp themes themselves and in Chow's case let's not forget he also sold ads space on every pixel on his site, including links (from TLA) for penis enlargement (no, i am not kidding) and furniture stores.

Getting back to the subject, i can say this... I was scammed way too many times already when it comes to the wp industry, i bought free theme that were promised to be unique, and i see every day a ripped theme here on
dp being sold, and now these themes databases ripped my designs.. I am really tired emailing these people, some apologize and crawl back to their corner, others send me to hell, and some even get angry with me for discovering and promise to get even (yes, one did, for catching him red handed..) from now on, I will just report them directly to the host. Period. I cant spend at least a few hours every few days corresponding with everyone and explaining why my themes are considered "mine". It says in the encrypted footer that modification in prohibited, it say the same in the CSS file, and I also (mostly) add my email for usage questions, if one bypassed all of the above, he can't claim he did it unknowingly.

Maybe i am just angry and too harsh but i am really just tired of these never ending rip offs..

 

Had a little conversation with the owners of wpthemesfree yesterday. Seems like they feel depressed and relieved at the same time. Relieved because they had to deal with malicious codes in submitted themes on a daily basis, among other things. AFAIK they have not applied for a penalty lift yet.

 

@ jinsona,
You've made a good point, and we have to start doing something about this. EVERYONE who designs themes and releases them are now in the long run loosing money to this guys, and it's just not fair.

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To point out, wpskins only very recently started adding the wpskins link in the meta of themes. I keep forgetting about google and it's "nofollow" junk (as I don't sell links on ANY of my sites nowadays) I forget it demands all links have nofollow on them, so links added as of today will have it.

Some people may not agree with adding a link to the theme, but it is up to the author if they want it, I would never force it on them.

The reason I started adding the link was simple; more and more crumby theme sites were starting to come out and take away traffic from legitimate theme sites - everyday I see wpskins (and others) being pushed down in the SERP's and being replaced with blogstheme(dot)come sorts, which can't happen - or the market will be done for.

Traffic is traffic, and if wpskins can get visitors from those other theme sites before the damage is done, the better!

The "wp community" as a whole (meaning the regular users of their support forum) took a vote to see if "sponsored" themes should be allowed, and a good percentage said no. Although I believe he already had an answer made up in his mind about it.

 

so after reading all this things about wpthemesfree, do u ppl think that we designers should submit themes to wpthemesfree ?

The only good solution is that maybe all we designers should start our own wp themes submitting site, just like web2feel and widgetreadythemes, and submit themes to those sites.. maybe this will make some good sense, coz no designer will add extra links coz he/she will be knowing the value of the sponsor links and designer links.

 

I don't think any of us in this thread who submit themes have anything against wpthemesfree, they are a good distribution site.

To me, any site that ads a link to the THEME SITE, with the OWNERS permission is OKAY!

BUT! If you look through this thread, you will see a number of theme sites where it has been pointed out that they are adding 1+ links to themes (and in some cases replacing the sponsors/designers links totally) with irreverent links such as a gambling and credit links.

 

^ yeah man have noticed that and its really bad

 

I have quietly been reading but here is my piece- Everyone in this theme industry seems to almost be very one sided and unfair- Everyone seems to want something for nothing- You cannot go to the gas station or the
grocery store and pick up food or gas and walk out and pay nothing- Every where in the free world you have to pay or give something back in order to recieve except when it comes to themes and the internet.

First of all the bloggers who take our themes and put on their site and remove the footer are unfair to want something for nothing, the theme download center who takes it and added in 3,4,5 links is unfair to want to use the way of advertising without the cost, the theme designer who wants to submit their themes everywhere and not even have a link put in their theme is unfair It is a 4 way circle that benefits everyone involved if done right-

1.) The theme creator- ie-me, jinsona, liza(loreli), Sib (hpa), myra(8everything), gigacore, zinruss, lyn(fanaddict) and anyone else I've left out not on purpose we are the first step in this- we create the themes- But creating isn't all because I have 2 kids to feed and while I'd like to run around just submitting 10 themes a week with just my link, I cannot because I'd be broke and hungry and the level of work would go to hell-
WHAT YOU GIVE
You get to design quality work and maybe you might go on your own one day when enough people know who you are.
WHAT YOU GET
You pay your bills and in my case being a single mom of 2- I get to keep a roof over our heads and feed my kids.

2.) Then sponsors come in which I won't name but they say listen I need a benefit from this so I will help you pay your mortgage, I will help you feed your kids, I will help you buy things in the real world- ie gas stations, grocery stores so sell me a link- There is nothing evil about this- even wordpress which every one goes around saying oh it's free, it's free- THEY GOT FUNDING- GO READ ABOUT IT- MILLLIONS IN FUNDING because guess what wordpress developers HAVE TO EAT TOOOOOOO!!!!!!!... so don't sit there and say oh wordpress is free with only links to developers and so themes should only have designer links..

What they give
Money to live or just to have fund or basically appreciation for your work in the form of cash

What they get
Some use it for seo benefit, some for traffic, others to try to drum up business, some for pr- depends on sponsors goals- Not every sponsor is trying to game search engines- some are designers who aren't good at wordpress and want a way for thier name on multiple blogs to drum up business.

3.) Download centers- Listen at the end of the day- if theme designers had the traffic that wpthemesfree or the other download centers had we wouldn't need them but we don't- we need them to showcase our work so we get more downloads and our sponsors are happy because they get a benefit- so if that means wpthemefree puts a link in my theme - FOR FREE while I get a theme that gets an extra 300- 1k downloads in the first month- I say hello wpthemesfree and nice to do business with you..

What they give
Added exposure that you wouldn't normally get if you only submitted your theme to your own website

What they get
A link in your theme- which you agree to that helps them rank higher so YOU can get more downloads and exposure for your work

4.) Bloggers- Now if all aspects of the business model work right- the blogger is our last stop and they see a nice theme, download put on their blog and now everyone win- Theme creator wins because sponsors have evidence thier dollars are not wasted, Theme creator wins because they have evidence thier work is being used so it is more reason to sponsor thier themes in the future, Download center wins because they now move higher in serps and also they are on the blog as advertisement..

What they give
Links to whoever the theme creator put in the footer

What they get
A great looking theme with zero cost

It is a great system but in every aspect of the system there are people who play the game not for the system but some quick profits or to get something for nothing.. There are theme creators popping up who only want quick profits and in a month you ever see them again.
There are sponsors who want the same benefit paying you $5, there are theme download centers that want to add in 100 links and give nothing to you- including removing all your links from the footer, there are bloggers who want to give nothing back and remove your footer and even add thier own saying they created the theme and have the nerve to send you an email asking you to help customize the theme they have ripped out your footer from..but we cannot police all these people if we did we could never design anything..

Lastly google who punish people beacause it suits them- But big corporations do the same thing and no punishment for them.. In my eyes- wpthemesfree did nothing wrong and they don't punish wordpress for putting 7 links with SAME EXACT anchor in all downloads but they will punish a small webmaster for it.. The rule with google is that there are NO RULES.. You can create a great linkbait and be punished for it because it suits them at the moment.. They say that thier job is to make sure the serps have correct results for the end user- Well how much more correct for the end user can you get from wpthemesfree- YOU CAN'T!! Google's whole thing is that you need links to show you are important but it is impossible for the average webmaster to compete in a field with regular companies like best buy without doing something a little grey hat- but if you try to do link exchange they say nope- we will punish you and if you try to do link bait- ie- John Chow- they punish you and if you try to get links by providing a service- ie wpthemesfree they punish you so really you cannot win because you don't even need to do anything to be punished- I had a site completely deindexed that didn't have dup content, wasnt linked in bad neighborhoods and wasnt buying, selling links- barely had any- they just deindexed the site and then they say FILE A RECONSIDERATION- how should you do that when noone will even tell you what you did wrong.. But guess what you can do this when you are a monopoly and this monopoly is not in favor of small webmasters it is in favor of the big corporations..

 

As long as they are ready to accept themes, I would love to upload my themes there.. I like that site and the people behind it.
But in this changed situation its obvious that they can't add the meta link to themes. It is frustrating and saddening to core ,when something like this happens.

When I say this, I am not blaming them or adding insult to injury, but things could have been different if they were a little more cautious .. that means over the last one year they have been on the top of the pages, but the back links never stopped accumulating and new links are generated in hundreds everyday. Once they secured a comfortable lead they could have stopped adding links to theme as a return favor and started charging for submissions or could have created a paid membership community.. This would have been a lot safer at the same time they are not at the losing end also.
But I wonder how much viable this idea for them at this point.

 

As i said in my previous post, not much that we can do if blog owners refuse to give credit to designers but there is something that we can do if they ripped our themes and resell it. Please allow me to contribute something here. This is a true story.

A downloaded my themes, generate a new footer.php ( sometime footer file encription is useless. Those who know html, css, php etc can bypass this within 5-10 seconds ), replace the header graphic, modify a bit the stylesheet and sell it to B. I'm contacted B before shut them down and you know what, B purchased a few customize themes from me and B become my royalty client now.

Partially of my themes are without encription. Good webmasters/blog owners will usually offer credit to designers and they are our targeted clients. Maybe my concept or business model is totally different compare with others. I'm offering free modification to blog owners who use my themes, sometime even offer color variation for free and what i hope is long term business relationship or friendship.

Just my 2 cents.

 

i did checked theme and css of many designer here and many many are coming daily with there theme and ripping other themes to earn money fast from dp , last week i checked css of few new designers and got many are just chaging only few things and selling themes here without any good effort. its not bad that you came here and sell links on your theme , but for this a new comer must have to learn css , php and other design applications , so you can do good. here only few designers are good and doing well , but for this we all have to work together and find all creepy persons who are here just for ripping our css and themes.

 

Ripping the themes is different story. This thread is stressing on sponsor and designer links being ripped on other wordpress themes site. I think, u should better read the first post first.

 

This thread is actually about some theme sites doing nasty things to our themes....

But while you bring up this, it's another big concern.

DP has been FILLED with newbies ripping off themes, and some even stealing the full files and changing bits here and there - it's getting awful.....

 

Can you name names of rippers here? Maybe sending it via PM would work? Thanks in advance.

 

If you go into the link sales section and search for "wordpress" you will see a new seller or 2 every week.

Most have low itrader and a good % don't have any background with design/coding. These are the ones to check up on.

 

Yes, there is a whole lot of them out there..

Most of them have dupe accounts. If you look at the number of bans among these new comers you will get an idea.
Most of them just don't go away if they are caught with ripoffs or get banned.
Soon they will create a new id, create some use less posts like, "PM me the details", "Nice theme", etc to get enough postcount.
Once they get enough postcount to create thread in linksale section, then BAM! he comes with a wordpress theme "fully designed by him", "fully coded by him", looking for sponsors with one million backlinks guaranteed..
This is sickening to deal with it on a daily basis.

All the rippers have a generic excuse when caught with ripoffs. "That was not my theme, I purchased it from a friend, who is not a DP member, or I got the codes from my friend, or I was selling the theme on my friends behalf"..

STOP this crap.. You are responsible for the product you are selling. If you are really buying a theme from another designer, it is your responsibility to make sure its originality.
Isn't DP a free forum? Anybody can create an account here for free. Then why should some one sell something on someone else behalf?
If it happens it can be assumed that the member is trying to help a banned member or some one who is denied an account here. Is that legal under the forum rules? I would like to know.

So there are elements inside and outside DP polluting this theme business.

jinsona

 

Thanks FanAddict and Jinsona... How can we filter good theme sellers from dirty theme sellers? Do we need to have a theme link seller organization just to prevent theme fraud here in out of dp where we can set rules? what do you think guys?

Bydway, I just noticed that wpthemesfree haven't updated their site for new themes...