The End Of Free Wordpress Themes
Unfortunately we have felt it neccesary to now remove all wordpress themes from this site. The main reason for this is most themes contain sponsored links within the footer of the themes. As we all know, paid links are against Google policies. Subsequently, even my own designer links could be classed as a paid link leading to penalties by Google or worst case, being banned.
Theme HQ is a part of several sites that I own. It generates zero revenue and therefore it is simply not worth running, I prevously have been more than happy to host Themehq as place to share wordpress themes as the maintenance costs were minimal. Now however I find that having themes here that contain these frowned upon links could have a detrimental effect to other sites I own, I simply do not want to take the risk.
Yes it is true I could manually go through and remove all sponsored links but I simply do not have the time. So very sorry - but this is the end for me and wordpress themes.
I intend to keep this blog up and running, Commentluv and keywordluv are activated as well as it being a dofollow blog so feel free to comment and get a little link love.
I would like to thank eveyone who has helped contribute to ThemeHQ
June 14th, 2008 at 12:09 pm
What a pity… but I can understand that you don’t want to be in danger of being punished by google. But have you thought of finding volunteers for removing the paid links? I guess for getting free wordpress theme I would not be the only one willing to work a little…
Michaels last blog post..Fotokalender “Elements” 2009
June 17th, 2008 at 12:51 am
It’s a shame that Google gets to dictate how so many other people operate their sites, and the sort of things they can do. It guess they give the traffic…they can’t take it away.
Simons last blog post..Free Spock Star Trek Cartoon Vector Image
June 17th, 2008 at 2:31 am
Monday In looking for specific sites related to my search for free wordpress layouts, I found your site Of Free Wordpress Themes | Theme HQ. Thanks for the content, it is interesting….
June 18th, 2008 at 7:33 pm
Hopefully goolge will not become the dicator of the internet… but I can understand you… Thank you for keeping this open for comments with KeywordLuv!
June 19th, 2008 at 7:11 pm
Hopefully google will not become the dicator of the internet… but I can understand you… Thank you for keeping this open for comments with KeywordLuv!
Mikes last blog post..Space Exploration News
June 21st, 2008 at 12:02 am
Man, it’s crazy how Google can effect so many aspects of how webmasters run their websites and blogs. I wish there was another search engines that let you receive as much traffic as Google does but without all the “stress” of worrying about links, etc.
July 2nd, 2008 at 4:56 am
They say google play god. I think that can be refer to your blog too. Pity your guy.
July 29th, 2008 at 12:28 am
Thanks for the useful post, and debate in the comments. There are pros and cons to KeywordLuv and CommentLuv. For me, CommentLuv has a slight advantage as it provides a deep-link to a blog post, as well as a general link to the homepage. Assuming you have keywords in your post-titles, you get the best of both.
EJs last blog post..Busby SEO Challenge Team’s Magnum Opus
July 31st, 2008 at 2:58 am
Aww…that’s a shame. Pooey. It seems like a lot of themes have sponsored links.
Susans last blog post..What are Short Sales?
July 31st, 2008 at 3:43 pm
Thanks for all that you have done so far. It’s a bit of a shame to end it here, but nonetheless I think many people really appreciate what you have done. Cheers! =)
August 4th, 2008 at 11:52 am
This is unfortunate - perhaps eventually you can find a way to remove the sponsored links without too much hassle, or maybe even find some volunteers to do it. At any rate, thanks for reminding me about this issue - I have a brother who is thinking about getting into WordPress themes and setting up a site like this in order to market the better quality ones and make a little extra money. I will need to remind him of this issue so that we don’t get penalized by Google.
August 14th, 2008 at 1:00 pm
It is bizarre that Google “rules” have caused this action. I am sure that this is not Google’s intention but play safe seems to be a good motto these days.
Howards last blog post..Top 10 Free SEO Tools
August 15th, 2008 at 9:49 pm
That’s a shame. I don’t think Google is out to screw people over. But they frequently make decisions that aren’t well though through. Then they turn out hurting perfectly innocent people.
Sids last blog post..Learn guitar software - PC Mac
August 18th, 2008 at 2:48 am
Why not just add rel=”nofollow” to the links? Then Google would be OK with that.
peters last blog post..Why Doesn’t Peter Answer Me?
August 18th, 2008 at 3:55 am
Interesting!
KeywordLuv helps you reward your commentators by separating their name from their keywords in the link to their site. This gives them improved anchor text, which can help their site rank higher in the search engine results.
You can now leave a comment with your name as well as a keyword of your choice here and get a PR5 link back to your site! How cool is that? People pay big bucks for that and all you have to do is comment here.
JSs last blog post..Busby SEO Challenger Sphere Going for the Top Spot Again
August 18th, 2008 at 6:54 am
I think premium themes will become more common but free themes will definitely not lose their value–basically only the top tier blogs are going to use premium themes, the rest of us will stick to the freebies.
MJs last blog post..Search engine rankings and pagerank
August 19th, 2008 at 12:21 am
That sucks… I never knew that those links were paid links :/
Then how are we suppose to have themes if they might get penalized by Google!
And thats great that your letting other people still get the benefits of KeywordLuv
I added KeywordLuv recently to my site for Diets
Anyways hope you find other ways to not get penalized!
August 20th, 2008 at 6:44 am
This really sucks man…I just started using these free themes on my guide to real estate investing blog and I was hoping to get some more
August 24th, 2008 at 4:21 am
Interesting to see the official Wordpress themes site is still allowing sponsored links?
August 26th, 2008 at 7:12 pm
I think googles fight against paid links is like peeing against the wind….. it will only back fire…..
Not worth to close your site over this. you have a well known site in this industry and that is not something to be taken lightly.
Jacks last blog post..Delaware
August 27th, 2008 at 5:45 pm
The demise of sponsored links in the footers of Wordpress themes is a good thing. A lot of them were irrelevant to the overall theme, e.g. gambling, pharmaceutical links in business templates etc and just looked unprofessional. Advert-free premium themes for a more professional blog are the way forrward and rightly so!
Wordpress Guides last blog post..11 Slimy Internet Marketing Characters
August 27th, 2008 at 11:14 pm
Too bad…why did Google have to know? You could have simply replaced them all with a link to one of your sites
Jasons last blog post..Using Yahoo! Siteexplorer To Identify Niche Markets
August 31st, 2008 at 4:47 am
It is a shame that google has this sort of power over decent blogs. But that is reality, and thanks for being real about it, and still keeping your site friendly for us, with the keyword and comment luv. Stay positive.
September 12th, 2008 at 6:25 am
This is a shame to hear. I have heard that certain bloggers were penalized for giving put free themes because they got too many backlinks to their site with the same keyword.
Perhaps you have made a smart decision then.
September 23rd, 2008 at 4:37 pm
Hopefully google will not monopolise the internet, we can see that both MSN and Yahoo recently upset the odds with traffic… but I can understand you the stigma with the Online world… Thank you for keeping this open for comments with KeywordLuv!
September 23rd, 2008 at 5:32 pm
Well, that’s too bad, but I can honestly understand your reasons for doing it. Stick with it, and stay positive. This is a great blog, that will get lots of traffic by word of mouth, in addition to search engines….
I think you have made a smart choice.
September 25th, 2008 at 9:30 pm
Seems like a big shame If you can’t even have themes with a footer link anymore, will we be allowed any sort of outgoing links on our site? Maybe I am getting paranoid. I guess I would like to know how Google defines paid links.
In one sense, all links are paid links because they are compensated by some sort of monetary or other consideration.
Kermits last blog post..Eden Prairie Home on Wooded Lot
October 7th, 2008 at 10:13 pm
homepage templates…
Wordpress offers a service under‘ Options’ - ‘ Writing’ in your Wordpress Admin Dashboard, where it automatically pings services. This means that each time you publish a new blog post, Wordpress will keep places such as Technorati up to date wi…
October 16th, 2008 at 7:09 pm
So is that means people who work (design and develop) and distribute free themes and as a reward they get a footer link (2-3 links) will be considered as paid links…Similarly what about a visit counter like free services? fewof them also get a backlink that goes across the site?
daves last blog post..Top 13 Pay Per View - Unlimited make money online sites to Work from home
October 22nd, 2008 at 4:42 am
Great post m8
October 26th, 2008 at 11:26 pm
I agree with the other commenters! Google is putting a heavy burden on webmatsers, generally paid links don’t generate much revenue but they help cover costs. It’s crazy!
Joes last blog post..Why You Need a Spyware Scan Remover
October 27th, 2008 at 1:35 pm
this very nice, thank you
November 6th, 2008 at 10:58 am
This sad, but maybe you can search volunteer from internet to redesign some themes
Tech Bargainss last blog post..Black Friday 2008 CorelDRAW X4
November 7th, 2008 at 2:50 am
A shame, I think there would be many people willing to manually remove these links for you.
November 12th, 2008 at 10:02 am
Its a great post and useful also because today everybody want to buy shopping goods online.
Thanks for such an helpful post.
November 14th, 2008 at 8:25 am
This is a cool post about coupons and there prices.
Thanks for such an informative post.
November 17th, 2008 at 8:55 am
wow what a nice post about coupons and retail information.
Its a very needed information because i need some coupons to buy somethings.
Thanks
November 18th, 2008 at 8:50 am
people want to know more about this.
Its a nice post about the same thing.
November 19th, 2008 at 5:56 pm
Sorry to hear that you do not have wordpress themes anymore. Not sure how google realy determines what link is correct or not. That basicaly is saying any link in footer will not count no matter what.
Thanks for the free wordpress themes i downloaded a few before and liked them.