Comments on: Free WordPress Themes – With a Catch

By: Career Outlook

Career Outlook — Sat, 14 Aug 2010 02:44:06 +0000

It is very useful post for me as I have been searching for the ways to remove that encrypted code in my wordpress theme. I have also read that these kind of codes also harm the search engine rankings.

Thanks a ton for sharing this information
New from Career Outlook Mechanical Engineer Career Outlook

By: D.J.Rony

D.J.Rony — Fri, 25 Jun 2010 20:36:14 +0000

I know free is not always good and there is always a catch. But I love to help my readers with the free things. I am using free theme for my blog. I hope to buy a paid one soon. I can change the css if I want to. But I don’t like to play with the free themes anymore. You can get plenty of paid themes in warez sites. The thing I did is- only make smaller the footer links and make it invisible by matching its color with the background. 1px link with matching color -How could you see that? It’s easy for the newbies. Don’t think as they can’t do nothing @Jaq . Please show some respect. Free is not always bad. Someday you were newbie too. Thanks to all the comments here.
New from D.J.Rony Web is my second home

By: darren@freebies search engine

darren@freebies search engine — Tue, 08 Jun 2010 17:49:56 +0000

I have only ever used the themes that come with the basic Wordpress installation. They don’t appear to have any underhand tactics to promote things you don’t want to promote. Your description of what you did to overcome the problem is very comprehensive, but it might be better to steer clear of some of these sites with themes. I have used one for my freebies search engine which will quickly find what you are looking for (and some other stuff that you didn’t realise you were looking for!).
New from darren Super deal

By: Jaq @ Net Age Web Design

Jaq @ Net Age Web Design — Sun, 06 Jun 2010 12:16:40 +0000

Heheheheheh! I like it! Most people go for free themes because they’re newbs and don’t know too much about coding, which is the luxury a theme offers. They’ll never be able to muster the technical expertise to tweak things like this themselves, and ultimately the links will remain or they’ll try something else. This is a sneaky linkbulding technique. and is only fair that someone with greater technical acumen can delete the offending code that was misrepresented in the first instance.

By: Benjamin Huebner

Benjamin Huebner — Tue, 08 Dec 2009 13:52:18 +0000

I don´mind if there is a link in a free theme related to the theme topic. But in this case I totally agree with you.

This seems as someone is selling your advertising space, isn´t it?
Benjamin Huebner´s last blog ..Christmas Blog Templates – Free with PLR!

By: Sire

Sire — Sat, 05 Dec 2009 21:54:10 +0000

I came across something similar to this awhile back, and I didn’t feel guilty at all about removing the links. Having said that I decided later that the theme was no longer for me, as why should I send credit to the creator, I left that link in, when he had tried something so sneaky. He should have left it on the demo site so that people knew what they were getting.
Sire´s last blog ..Why I No Longer Link To The Likes Of ProBlogger And John Chow

By: ad space use on blog

ad space use on blog — Sat, 05 Dec 2009 19:33:17 +0000

[...] post recommendation of the day: Kikolani, whose real name is Kristi, wrote some days ago about “free wordpress themes with a catch” Now, don’t get me wrong, I am a big fan of free wordpress themes, I am using one myself [...]

By: SEO Company

SEO Company — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 07:20:21 +0000

nice themes while the time of theme selection keep in mind SEO benefit some theme give best structure for your internal linking it’s help full for getting PR nice article kristi!!
SEO Company´s last blog ..Dynamic Parameter Handling in Google Webmaster Tool

By: Premium WordPress Theme Clubs - Best Value

Premium WordPress Theme Clubs - Best Value — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 19:06:52 +0000

[...] these free themes contain links that quite possibly “evil” … as Kristi recently discovered in Free WordPress Themes – with a catch.Don’t get me wrong, I’m not in any way trying to imply that ALL free wordpress themes are “bad”. [...]

By: George Serradinho

George Serradinho — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 06:20:49 +0000

That is one of the reasons I don’t like using free themes, always problems with backlinks and encoded links. It’s always better to check the source code to make double sure that this practice is not being excerised on your site.
George Serradinho´s last blog ..Enhance Your Featured Posts using Smooth Slider WordPress Plugin