One of the most popular Premium Themes to be freely given away by unscrupulous people is the Thesis Theme. Other premium Themes from different developers with good reputation suffers the same fate. Of course this problem is not limited to Premium WordPress Themes only but all kinds of popular software. Windows is so widely pirated that even giants like Microsoft have no proven way of stopping them.
In the case of pirated software, one can at least say the reason is because there is money to be made. When it comes to WordPress Themes, the reason will seem a little bit obscure to those who do not know. Why do people take all the trouble to give away Themes that cost 87 bucks? Do they make something out of it?
The one and only reason I can think of is LINKS.
Every one knows how important it is to have other blogs linking back to our own. A few good backlinks can propel your blog from the throes of SERPs to the front page in a matter of days. Businesses, big or small, who depends on their sites to increase their business pays SEO consultants big money to get their sites ranked for the top spot in the first page of Search Results. A top spot ranking can make a vast difference in the search hits if compared to the second spot and those underneath.
How do SEO consultants, after receiving their big bucks, guarantee a top spot ranking?
They go get backlinks for their client’s keywords and they want lots and lots of them to make sure their client climbs to the top and stay there so their contracts gets extended over and over again.
And where do they get the easiest kind of backlinks?
They buy them. Years ago, link brokers like Text Link Ads, Linksworth and the now almost defunct Pay Per Post did so well selling links as a middle man. Bloggers from all over the world registered with them and there are no shortage of takers who needs backlinks.
Suffice to say, the higher your page rank, the more you will be paid. It was a total free for all back then and even yours truly made some handsome money as I had a couple for PR5 blogs. On a good day, if we are fast enough, we can grab 2 opportunities to write a 200 words post worth at least 60 bucks a piece and all they need is 2 or 3 backlinks inserted. The beauty of it, you can write shitty craps. All they wanted was the links.
Some fishes to kill the monotony of a long winded post
On top of that, a PR5 blog can sell text links like hot cakes. At one time, I had more than 15 text links inserted in various locations of my PR5 blog from a month to month basis. I really thought I could go pro during that ‘golden’ era.
Things only grind-ed to almost a standstill after Google decided enough is enough. All those link buying is playing havoc with their Search Results. Even the crappiest sites are now ranking highly in their search results page, giving them a very bad reputation as the Best Search Engine in the world. They decided to bitch slap every one who was selling links and doing all those crappy paid posts. Almost all who were involved got their PRs stripped clean and their post disappeared from the SERPs.
It was a very effective move. With no Page Ranks to show, no one is interested to buy links from you anymore. You will laugh if I tell you now, but back then, even highly prominent bloggers that you and me know were involved.
They had to delete all those paid post, get rid of all those paid links and refund the money for Ads that has not reached their maturity date. Then they have to go submit a re-inclusion appeal to Google, beg for forgiveness and promise they will never be naughty again before Google decides whether to give them back their Page Ranks and have their blogs appearing in the Search Results again.
Google traffic is not important? Ha Ha.
It was such a fun period blogging during those times. There were so much crying and whining from bloggers who lost their Page Ranks and of course inevitably, Big G became the evil monster. Everyone was cursing the evil G. Even I even wrote a few sarcastic pieces myself.
Back to the story of why people are giving away the Thesis Theme and other Premium Themes.
Somehow, Google don’t seem to mind so much if you don’t overdo it with links in your Theme’s footer. Thus, many went that way in buying their backlinks. They started to sponsor Themes and have theme developers design nice looking themes, then pay them to have their links inserted in the Theme’s footer.
It was something that WordPress developers and purist disagrees to because WoprdPress is open source and money should not be made from it. Theme developers are encouraged to play a part in supporting the WordPress community freely. Thus, official WordPress download sites never carries Themes with sponsored links.
Nevertheless, sites offering free premium Themes are a dime a dozen. All those themes carries at least 3 sponsored links, but people are getting smart. They know how to delete those foooter links. To overcome this problem, designers who sells links in their themes began encrypting the links, making it impossible for amatuers to distinct whih are links and which are codes when deleted, will break the Theme. Then there are also many who never know or heard of such a thing. They take those links as credits for the Theme developers so they leave it intact.
When it comes to the Thesis and other paid themes, because of it’s superior quality, it is a hotly searched and favored Theme. Good money can be made from Themes that are heavily downloaded because whoever bought the links in these Themes will get more backlinks and as such, links inserted into these Themes will naturally cost more.
The Thesis Theme became a link inserting haven for these link seller. As the Thesis is built with many of the core files standing individually, it becomes easy for them to hide their links in various places. It will take someone with some knowledge to dig into the core of the Thesis Theme to locate those malicious links. Unless you are able to turn the Thesis Theme upside down, there is a high possibility that there are still one or two well hidden ones.
For the same reasons that I am willing pay money to buy themes like the Thesis, I have no problems with theme designers who sells a link or two in their Themes to compensate their time and effort. In all fairness, they only gets paid once even of the Theme is downloaded a thousand times.
The problem I have are with the people who rip other’s themes for free, then sneaks some links in them for a profit.
Some even has the cheek to say they are doing it as a service to the WordPress community because they believe all WordPress Themes should come free. Yea, like as though the two encrypted links to some porn sites are inserted there for free too.
Wise up guys, there is no such thing as a free lunch in this world.
Phew, that’s quite a mouthful, my good DocktorThomas, but it’s hardly the point.
It’s not about re-painting the Mona Lisa, or imitating the wheel, change the already sweet smile and then exhibiting it to others saying you have improved the Mona Lisa or you have made a better wheel.
It is more like stealing the Mona Lisa and then giving it away for free because someone paid you to do it…. or something like that….
I thought u already had a similar article, where you said, it’s not so much about the money. It’s about that feeling that u “beat the system”
I would understand dling software that costs thousands, even hundreds.
But some 60-80 bucks I am sure are no problem for anyone.
They do it for the fun of it, I suppose. Most warez people just do it because they can.
You don’t see because you have not used it. Use it and you will see the vast difference. Not in looks or functionality, but the actual increase in search traffic.