Searches on Google for WordPress themes or any variation of it, like “free WordPress themes” will result in more than half of the results linking to sites that redistribute themes from various designers. There really isn’t a problem with this unless it is used in an ethical manner, but it rarely is, especially when you look at how shady some of the sites are that do this.
Leland from ThemeLab recently covered this topic, so I won’t touch too much on what he covered, but more on my stance on this and what we should be doing to prevent this from happening.
Free Theme Releases
Many designers (and developers) release free themes to the community primarily because they feel it is the right thing to do. Also up in the list of benefits is the links they receive back from various sites linking to the theme. For example, if I like a theme, have used it, and want to share it, I’ll post it on this site, so the theme will receive back links, and return visitors as long as they are hosting the theme and I have the theme on my site.
Additionally, whenever someone uses the theme, whether it be a blogger or a small business, the creator of the theme receives a link back, which is often placed in the footer. It’s just courteous to keep this link in the footer, as the user has received the theme for free, instead of paying to have one designed custom for their site or have one purchased from any of the premium theme sites.
In other words, theme designers release their themes primarily for recognition within the community. These designers rank very well for a number of their theme releases, as well as for popular keywords, as is evidenced by any Google search.
Redistribution of Themes Versus Sharing
At Blog Themes Plus, we share the themes we find. We do not redistribute any of the themes. If we happen to find a theme that we have downloaded for testing, but the designer no longer hosts the theme, we will gladly host the theme, but there will be absolutely no changes to the theme files. And now, we get onto the redistribution side of things.
The sites that share themes by changing the theme files, hosting the themes, serving multiple redirections to visit the original site, and so on, have only one or two main intentions. First of all, you’ll notice that many of these sites have relatively few ads in their sidebars, or anywhere on the site. Even larger, more respected sites have more ads than most of these sites. The main way they get a return on their hosting fees is by selling links or a similar method.
When you download themes from these sites, the footer text (although it can be pretty much anywhere) has been changed to include an encrypted code that can include anything from scripts to malicious code to dozens of links to spam-ridden sites. As a blogger, you have to make the decision: do I want to choose this theme because I found it quickly or risk my site (and my visitors) being exposed to malicious code that could find its way onto thousands of computers?
The next main point of these sites is simply to get good rankings in search engines. Many people who visit these sites will link back to them, as the owners of these sites often let users upload their own themes. In lists of “best places to download WordPress themes,” these sites are often placed amongst the top, because most people don’t realize the risk they pose. As long as these sites remain “legitimate” in the eyes of most visitors, they’ll continue to receive a ton of traffic.
Think about this: if a site has thousands of themes, how many of them were really checked for this malicious code before being “approved” by the site owner, if even looked at? Most likely, the site owners sit back while thousands of people download “their” themes, essentially putting the site on autopilot.
What You Can Do
To combat the problem, we have to think about where quality lays. The web is often considered a free-for-all place, considering nearly everyone can get online to voice his or her opinion. Hosting illegal content is easy, like the way premium themes are distributed on even more shady sites.
These are our options:
- Continue downloading themes from shady sites and putting millions of visitors at risk monthly, due to the code that has been placed on these sites.
- Avoid these sites and choose the source sites (our sites like ours) that only refer to other sites, where you can find the theme downloads.
Other tips to finding themes without malicious code:
- Only download the themes from legitimate sites, where there are faces behind the themes. Don’t visit the sites that allow anyone to upload theme files.
- Although WordPress.org’s Theme Database is considered a legitimate site, I don’t consider it a good place to find themes that will make your site better. Again, it is all about getting links back there, and many of the themes lack the details required to get the theme setup, and you are often left with no idea of how the theme is supposed to look due to the way the theme demos are setup.
- Use the Theme Authenticity Checker, which checks for malicious codes or more than a few links to third-party sites.
- Read the reviews of themes. Stop downloading themes for their appearance. If you like a theme due to its background color and the header image, you have to consider the alternatives, which often contain advanced back-end panels, making it easy to customize the theme, and you have a lot more flexibility. These are standard options on many themes now, and there is no excuse for using themes that are sub-par. Value your blog, and don’t use any of the themes that come with styles that make your visitors want to puke.
- Finally, decide for yourself. Use your best judgement when it comes to determining which sites offer the themes without additional code. If you see multiple links pointing to casino, hosting, or prescription drug ads within the footer, there is a good chance the themes will also contains this code.
Please consider adding your input to these main ideas, or check out our collection of themes – we do not host any theme files, so you will be directed to the source pages where you can find the themes to download or purchase.
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