Once burned, twice shy. I personally would never use a theme where you had to link to the designer in the footer. Spammers love these theme designer domains because of all the built-in backlinks (giving better Google ranking), and when one of these domains is abandoned/expires, it will be quickly grabbed by a spammer. Good-willed template users will then find themselves unknowingly linking to the worst sort of spam/malware/adult websites.
Thread Starter
Mattz
(@mattz)
you are actually very true !
Good point.
So, the question is what shall I do, I like the project, but I only need a small piece of it for sure.
You can pay the guy to remove the footer stuff, but I don’t like to ay 100% for 25% what I need to go further with my idea.
Then do it yourself and shut up about it. You bellyache because you don’t like giving a link back to someone, someone who did most of the legwork for you already. If you don’t want it in the footer, then put it on a colophon page. Or pay the license fee to remove it completely and have at it.
Not all theme designers are shysters; I personally think that statement above is pretty darned unfair to the myriad designers out there who release solid, validating themes without one iota of spam or sponsorship, and who have done so for years, long before the Sponsored Theme kerfluffle ever came up.
Those themes, though free, often do either require or gently request that a link be kept in the footer. If you don’t want to do that, then find another theme whose license you CAN live with. Or hire someone to create a custom script for you. </rant>
Thread Starter
Mattz
(@mattz)
He, relax a little bit please.
Iridiax had a very good point about the link too, you can’t deny that.
I’m looking for something that suits me, so I may ask here for opinions, not stupid statements like you do.
There is no known License fee for the project and also, the person is on Vacation, so that’s not an option at the moment.
I will look further and have seen a lot of project that try to do the same.
let’s see what I find 🙂
No, Iridiax didn’t have a good a point, he was making a broad generalization. That’s never a good point. I hope you find what you’re looking for at a price you can live with.
Sponsored themes (those with embedded third party advertising) are spam. Those with a link to the designer are not, but these links should be checked every so often to make sure that the site has not been taken over by someone else like a spammer.
Free WordPress themes with links to the designer are not only used by regular designers, but also by SEO folks as part of their link building strategy (tens of thousands of site-wide footer backlinks from a wide variety of reputable sites are a valuable thing for SEO).
Hey, Options is my theme. I was just stopping by for some late-night forum reading (yes, while on vacation) and noticed this post.
Mattz, feel free to use the contact form on my site if you want to discuss credit link removal.