The first time you log in to your sparkling new wordpress blog, you will be given 2 default themes which, if you are not too particular about how your blog looks, you can use. The default “kubrick” theme is the most popular and many modified versions are based on this theme. It looks clean and very professional. However if you are one like me, who cannot live with a theme that have been used by millions, then most probably you will be spending a good part of your blogging lives looking for a perfect and unique theme.
There are probably thousands and thousands of wordpress themes that are available for free download. The downside is most of the more beautiful themes would have been downloaded by the thousands and again, you will be using a theme that will not be as unique as you want.
If you can pay big money, then of course you can pay some professionals to design one for you. Most of the time, when you pay someone to do it for you, you get to keep all the rights to the theme and the designer will not be allowed to do another one that looks similar to yours ever again. However, that being said, when your blog becomes real successful, your design will definitely be copied by others. It will leave a bad taste in your mouth. Since you have spent so much for your theme, seeing it being blatantly copied is a dent to your ego. There isn’t much you can do though, unless you want to bring the copycat to court.
Another cheaper alternative is to get our themes from blog forums like SitePoint or DigitalPoint. These forums have threads by designers that offer their themes for sale with promises that you get all the rights to the theme. These themes goes for very much lower than those done by well known designers and some of the quality are on par or even more superior than those you pay hundreds or thousands for.
Within these forums, you will also find many free themes that you won’t find listed in more public places like the Wordpress Themeviewer, which is the de facto site for all those looking for free Wordpress themes. Themes downloaded from these sites are deemed “safe to use” with no sponsored links at the footer or any where else. This could not be said for themes that are offered in forums.
Be wary of themes that are offered for free in these forums. There have been write ups in Weblog Tools Collections, a place I go often to check out new, safe and free themes, that many themes offered there has secrets codes embedded within the Theme’s structure that is invisible to the human eye, but can be seen very clearly by Search Engines. These codes normally consist of links to other sites and those who unknowingly use the theme will be giving away free links and leaking link juice every time they open up their blogs.
This was the case with the theme that you are looking at right now. I downloaded it from DigitalPoint because it was kind of unique and looks somewhat suitable for this blog. Fortunately for me, I have this habit of tinkering with all the themes that I downloaded offline before using it. It was in the course of modifying this theme that I saw 2 very suspicious files within the Theme. It has 2 Footer php. and an extra Global php files that I don’t normally see in other themes. I opened the theme in my computer locally and viewed the source files and my suspicions were confirmed. There were indeed a long list of links in the theme’s footer which showed up in the source but not visible when you run it normally. Though I don’t think it will do any major harm, I don’t like to be fooled into giving out links this way. If the author has stated clearly beforehand, then it would have been different.
As it is, I removed the 2 files before using it here. I might keep it or I might replace it again if something more suitable comes along. I have this nagging feeling that this theme have not being totally cleansed.
