I was wondering that if i download a free website template and then change everything including the footer, would that have any effect to my google ranking?
my questions is: Can downloading free templates from websites and changing the footer effect your future ranking?
i dont think it will affect rankings. it may if you change titles of your post or title of you blog itself
You can download the themes and you can change the footer also. but if you change the title of the page, or path of the page it will effect to your google rank. so never change the title and path of the page. all other things are ok.
davocool, there are many elements to getting good rankings on Google or any search engine. It is not just the title itself. It does not matter what template you download and use. What matters is what you do after you download it. You have to do basic SEO on your pages. Good luck.