Hi, I am about to start couple of blogs, and as I do not have budget to get a custom theme designed for my blogs (Even I do not know how much will it cost), I decided to go for either a free theme or buy a theme off-the-shelf, and after going through 10-15 respected wordpress themes seller (studiopress, wootheme, themeforest, and through the website of all the commercial theme seller listed on wordpress.org), and twice as many free WordPress theme online directories, I decided to settle down for a semi-free theme. By semi-free theme I mean, If I decide to use the theme from say Website X then as stated in the theme usage terms by the website, I will have to retain the following sentences along with the links in the footer: XXX Theme is Designed By: X Company & made free by X website In the above written ,Footer links to the designer and sponsor of theme are mandatory while using this Theme. This is the situation. Now, My questions are: 1. If I use the themes that comes with this kind of usage restriction for my blogs then will my blogs be seen as second-rate, or mediocre by the visitors, search engines and professional? 2. Can I reduce the opacity of Footer links and texts without violating the copyright law? And will it be aright? And is it advisable? 3. Will this kind of theme negatively reflect on the quality of my blog? I must add here, I will change the color scheme and do some editing to the themes like, will add twitter feeds, social networking links etc. to the theme. And I also emphasize that I am planning to not start this website as hobby, but to establish it as a commercial blog that can earn. Will themes with this kind of footer backfire? Please help me out. Thanks for your time Bikram
I just can say that these links would not affect your website branding. A footer is rarely seen focussed. A footer would help the user know required info about the blog, he neglects the remaining part. I mean if some visitor specifically looks at the footer for theme link, then he would be concentrating on it. Else it will go unseen. Also, many websites have networks, this is good. Instead of taking it negatively, visitor may think you are in that network. This is a positive out come.
I can only speak from personal experience, but I'm not a huge fan of those footer links. It does change my perception of the blog, but I do think that is because I'm aware of why they're there. If I see footer links that aren't related to the blog, I know it's because someone hasn't paid for a theme and it does phase my judgement. Not nice, but you asked for an honest opinion. However, I think the volume of people that are aware enough to make that connection is very small. Most regular visitors who aren't involved in online business won't have a clue. I also think the compromise you've got is very good; the really bad ones are the footers which include sold links to completely random products. At least the one you've found is a bit tied in and looks normal. So if you don't want to spend for a premium theme, I'd say you've found the best option. Even though I know what the footer links represent, if the blog is good it doesn't matter anyway. SEO, however, is an important consideration. I had an SEO-specialist colleague tell me that these links are very bad for SEO, but he didn't elaborate any further and I don't know the intricacies of it. Hopefully someone can come along and explain if this is the case.