WordPress Banning Sponsored WP Themes
Written By: admin Posted On: July 12, 2007 Tags:
A few days ago Matt announced his decision to remove sponsored themes from themes.wordpress.net. A sponsored theme is a theme in which the theme developer has received money in exchange for allowing a sponsor a link on the footer of the Wordpress theme. This link allowed developers to get a few peanuts for offering their theme for free and the sponsors several thousand (sometimes more) back-links all the same.
This is ridiculous. This is a slap in the face to the open source theme development movement. Wordpress has positioned their site as the central hub for downloading Wordpress themes, and even though I don’t release themes, to impose this sort of rule– out of the blue is truly garbage.
Most of us know Matt Cutt’s (and Google’s) stand on paid-for links, and we know that Wordpress has been working with Google to allow Adsense on wordpress.com (their hosted blogging platform). It seems this probably has something to do with this to me, as Wordpress wouldn’t want to step on anyone’s toes by allowing paid links on themes they directly support.
And, how do you explain the embedded links on the default installation of Wordpress? Matt obviously realizes what he’s doing in reaping the SEO benefits, since his business card reportedly says “Google me”. What about the embedded sponsored links in the Dashboard? Weblog Tools Collection is one of those.
On the other hand, some of the sponsored links I’ve noticed lately were getting a bit out of control. Maybe allowing one sponsored link per theme would be better than banning them completely. Either way, this brings up a business opportunity.
The first person to start a quality Wordpress theme site that allows sponsored links might just do some good business right now if it’s done properly. There is a good opportunity here with some of the bigger Wordpress sites banning sponsored links.
Well that kinda sucks. I mean, I didn’t have my themes sponsored yet, but I was considering it…
I agree, I think we should ban those sponsored themes completely. Most of the sponsored themes I’ve seen are actually stolen from other designs.
I just read on a fellow bloggers site that he made over 2000 dollars buying themes and then getting people to buy links on them. There is good money to be made doing this.
On the other hand I have the domain name wphelper.com and was thinking about making a wordpress site that has helpful information such as installing themes, how to upgrade, how to install plugins, as well as a good forum. I’ve been to the official wordpress site, and that is just not user friendly.
I’d never really thought of it that way, Nick. You’re probably right though. Maybe they should crack down on copyright infringement instead? Once you bring money into anything it is bound to cause corruption…
Twin,
That might work out well. I’ve been thinking of creating something similar also… Probably won’t have enough time to do so though.
Hey Scot – Thanks for bringing my attention to your post. I have not been keeping up with the WP community because I had dedicated server problems to deal with. Anyway, I’ve written something about this topic here.
Scot,
Yea, I currently am trying to start up a couple of other things before I even think about doing the wphelper website. But I was thinking about just creating something and updating it once in a while, then try to flip it later.
Great post
SP,
I’ve read and commented on your blog. I think you give a very unbiased and balanced review of the situation. I see a few others going heavy-headed, though.
BT,
I’m always thinking of new ideas. I think it’s a good thing, though.
Bob,
Thanks for stopping by. Your themes look great– would be interested if you had any more input on the subject.
It’s Matt’s site and he can do what he wants with it as far as I am concerned. Sponsored themes still have their place and I don’t need Matt to help me distribute mine.
If he wants to help me get the word out about them, cool. If not, a significant number of people will still find my free themes.
Of course none of my free themes are sponsored – but if someone wants to sponsor a new one just let me know and I’ll hook you up
@ Nick la
Just for your records, most of the themes that are copied today are popular old themes contributed by Headsetoptions, Sadish Bala, Andreas Viklund, Kaushal Sheth and so on….so, if a new sponsored theme is a ripoff/copy of an old sponsored theme, you are right, let’s remove all sponsored themes, the ripoffs as well as the originals if that’s the most intelligent way of controlling ripoffs:)
@ Scot
I agree with you. The votes on sponsorships are divided, but I’m sure none of us would be debating whether ripoffs should be removed or not.
I have prepared an Excel report of ripoffs in the past 4 months with Headsetoptions.org, and have been speaking on this issue for a while now. We don’t expect appreciation, but if we are criticized for our efforts to bring attention to other important issues, then there is no motivation left for us to work towards them.
Unfortunately,
1. The rating system was removed after many were hurt repeatedly.
2. The first sponsored theme was released on May 2nd, 2006, we had no objection to embedded links when the number of themes were less.
3. As of today, there are only about 100 ripoffs, so it’s a non-issue for many.
This debate is pointless, because WordPress is Matt’s monopoly, it’s not a democracy where we all are jumping in to vote. Let’s just hope that something good will come out of it.
Thanks for contacting me, hope this helps!