Will the free wordpress themes, especially those from themes.wordpress.net, affect our search rankings in a negative way? What kinda wordpress themes are user-friendly & search engine friendly at the same time? 2 or 3 columns? Left or right sidebar? Dark or light background? Images or not?
I don't think any of those things will affect search engine rankings. If themes required footer backlinks, you might lose some PR, but that's usually not a big deal for you unless you have a higher PR blog. Make sure you have turned on the search engine urls within the admin and made the changes required in your .htaccess file if search engine rankings are what you're after.
i normally go for 2 columns (with a navbar up top) and menu column on the right. These seem to work ok for and are indexed and ranked well.
Didn't think it really mattered in terms of search engines, though I would say that I think the 2-column layouts are the most visually appealing as well as being easier to navigate. Sometimes I feel there can be just too many links, and as nice as it is to have a full site, it can be offputting.
2 columns are nice, but 3 columns are easy enough to use and help you keep more stuff above the fold (the part visible without scrolling down), which is good for many things, including blog monetization.
I prefer using 3 columns, as i can have more space to put on the left and right bar. It was recommended by a friend of mine here in DP. Sometime it also depends on your own taste on which or how many columns that you want but in some cases, it also depend on your website things or stuff that you are putting in.
two columns are more widely use than anything else, then again it doesnt really matter which you use.
i dont think its going to afect ranking; but its really very difficult phase to choose a theme (at least for me!)
I don't think any theme will have an overall effect on SEO but I definitely like to make sure the theme I pick is "Widgets enabled" just to make my life easier.
Can you show me the best list of three colmm free wp themes - here or on the search engines perhaps .....
Free Themes Directories in Wordpress ------------------------------------ Looking for the awesome WordPress themes? Here's the place to find them! Welcome to the Free WordPress Themes directory. Search below or check out our new filter and tag interface. U search selected themes and install n customizatin.. Wordpress-->Free wordpress themes------->http://wordpress.org/extend/themes/
Some themes are may be very dangerous for your blog. I prefer http://wordpress.org/extend/themes/ because it is safe!
Word press theme is more effective and easy to install rather than other theme. But i have not much experience about word press theme. recently i have download medical powerpoint theme.
I too like to use 2 column theme but don't think any theme would effect your search ranking or enything else...
two or three column themes are nice - make sure you get the plugins like all in one seo and dupe content cure....