Sponsoring themes and designs - does it work?

I have seen people selling links encrypted into wordpress designs and similar layouts for other sites. Can I get a few impartial, informed opinions as to the benefits of this?

Assuming the theme was a succesful one, for say a blog and had around 500 downloads to small-med blogs, eventually pr0-pr5, of varying quality, would this help with pr and traffic, or could it be penalized by google? Any thoughts welcome, but particularly if drawing from personal experience.

Thanks

 

I don't quite understand the question. Can you simplify it?

 

yes its a great way to get backlinks with little or no effort as long as you go for what you believe will be a popular theme you can soon notch up 500-1000 backlinks.

Remember most themes are now promoted at 40+ sites

 

I read on another thread here that a theme designer was contacting sites to remove the footer links. This was apparently after Google told him that those links were spam/paid links. I don't know if the story is necessarily true though.

It doesn't seem like something that search engines would typically penalize a site for. It is something that you could do to your competitors to sabotage them. So I am doubtful.

In theory it should be safe and have good seo benefits, but with the way Google is going after paid links, who knows.

 

I have read on a few threads here at dp that some people who have
sponsored themes got their site penalized for doing so, I think google
is getting more strict when it comes to enforcing their rules.

 

thanks for the info, I don't think I will risk it.

Kind Regards

Chris

 

it is dangerous to get theme links

 

Its much better if you can create the resource yourself, that way there is no sponsor links, just a designed by link. That leads to you ofcourse.

 

I sell sponsored links on my themes. And it's a great way to increase backlinks and gain PR points.

You may get penalized by google. If you sponsor too many links!
You must do it slowly. Never run after quantity. I mean, people now a days are selling links for $15, which are even not worth that money. Always sponsor quality themes. Which aren't going to be cheap, but they will give you benefit rather than the crappy themes without any kind of potential at all!

My suggestion to you would be, try to sponsor few themes, and see what result you get. And always try to sponsor themes, relevant to your site's niche, this will help you get relevant links. And google won't suspect it.

Or the best solution is to hire a designer (a person who's already in this business), and sponsor the whole theme, only having your link as the designer! Google will never penalize you for this!
Because it's your design and you are just getting credit for your theme...