Sponsored links on WordPress Themes

[gkd_uk]

Hi

Do you purchase sponsored links on Word Press themes and how often?

Thanks

 

[temi]

I have done on a number of occassions, did not see any noticable backlinks benfits

 

[SkinnerW]

Here is my opinion on sponsored themes...

1. 90% of the time these free themes are very low quality. They made with a single purpose - to spread a backlink.

2. If link is not encrypted 9 out of 10 users will remove it (believe me I have proof)

3. If you decided to sponsor a theme make sure to get all rights from the designer so your link will be the only ONE in the footer.

Another thing about free themes... People who use them obviously not willing to invest time or money into developing unique quality site... What is the benefit of having a link from another useless made-on-the-fly blog?

This is the main reason I stopped making skins for sponsorships and free releases.

Save your money - these links are worthless!

 

[gkd_uk]

You have some great points there SkinnerW - Thanks

 

[SkinnerW]

I must say people like you are rare exception from the general rule :thumbsup: (you know what I am talking about...)

 

[temi]

I quite agree with you Skinner, the few occassions I have paid to sponsore themes, I got a few backlinks for a few weeks and after a while it all disappered.
When I use free themes, I tend to remove the links from the footer too, most of the links link to usually low quality unrelated sites.

 

[gkd_uk]

It is totally wrong to remove footer links especially when you have recieved a template for free.

People work hard designing and providing free templates so their link should remain at the footer.

 

[temi]

You are right GKD, one should leave footer template links there or not use the template at all, but sadly, quite a few people do.

 

[vicdigi]

I had done this previously but like Temi did not notice anything really. If I were to use a template designed by someone else that had guidelines not to remove footer links then I would honour that as it is only fair to do so.

 

[kokkada]

sponsored links

Here is my opinion on sponsored themes...

1. 90% of the time these free themes are very low quality. They made with a single purpose - to spread a backlink.

2. If link is not encrypted 9 out of 10 users will remove it (believe me I have proof)

3. If you decided to sponsor a theme make sure to get all rights from the designer so your link will be the only ONE in the footer.

Another thing about free themes... People who use them obviously not willing to invest time or money into developing unique quality site... What is the benefit of having a link from another useless made-on-the-fly blog?

This is the main reason I stopped making skins for sponsorships and free releases.

Save your money - these links are worthless!

Very good opinion. sponsored links worthless.

 

[BenjArriola]

I suggest make your own themes instead. And make the theme related to whatever you are targeting. Let's say you have an SEO client that is a photographer. Then make theme designed for photographers, like having cameras, lens, film, sd cards in the design and make it really look nice. Thus most probably, but you are not 100% sure, but still with a higher probability you will get photographer bloggers on wordpress.

If you have a client selling dog food, then make a wordpress theme that is professionally designed with some nice royalty free stock photos of Dogs in it. And hopefully the people that install it are dog lovers that keep blogging about dogs. Maybe even small petshop owners might install it.

This is the only way I can see you can get to push the relevancy of a blog going to your site, thus giving some benefit from a wordpress theme.

But just sponsoring some link on any random theme, I think that will not work. And if it does not look good, then maybe even no one might install it.

 

[Hotmonk]

Well I disagree, so if any of you guys have some nice themes you want to sell the rights to, PM me please

 

[Hotmonk]

Sorry, to clarify, I disagree with the general tone of this thread, I entirely agree with Benj Arriola this guy knows what he is talking about. Nice one Benj!

I see you are in the SEOcontest2008

 

[beautyinmd]

I think you guys are totally off base here- I am a theme creator and I sell sponsored links and I have some of the best themes out there, my themes get picked up by PR5,PR4,PR3 sites daily with hundreds of indexed pages in google, Right now out of 10 most downloaded themes I have 3 out of the 10 most downloaded themes in the last 30 days and part of the reason is because my themes are not crappy, if you put out crappy themes you will barely see results but my themes have gotten anywhere from 300 to 800 downloads in a month so it depends on the quality, even people who use free themes will keep and honor links of a nice theme as a matter a fact my 1 month old site has picked up close to 10k links just using themes

 

[xhan]

I quite agree with you Skinner, the few occassions I have paid to sponsore themes, I got a few backlinks for a few weeks and after a while it all disappered.
When I use free themes, I tend to remove the links from the footer too, most of the links link to usually low quality unrelated sites.

Don't get me started on people who remove the links from themes - they get angry emails from me!

My minions see my themes being used without credit they and email me! How I love my minions!

all my themes (and most others) are released under the GPL licence which means a credit link must remain - other wise I get angryyy. :nono: