Wondering if an un-supported Adsense theme will work...

[Joe J]

Hi

I am on the fence about purchasing an Adsense CTR Theme and was wondering if an un-supported theme, not just the CTR theme, but any theme used by Wordpress, has a chance to not operate properly somewhere down the road because of any updates that Wordpress may put out?

I'm not sure if this belongs in the Website Design or the Programming Talk forums but I thought that this would be answered in this forum because of the Adsense relation.

Thanks for your time and any help given,

Joe J

[Barry Unruh]

Any theme not being supported and updated along with the Wordpress updates is likely to fail at some point in time. Whether it is next week, next year, or in three years.

If you are going to buy a theme buy one with excellent support, personally I'd recommend Clickbump.

[outwest]

I have never heard CTR does not work
Many people are using it and are happy with it

I have just heard its not supported

[Joe J]

Thanks for the quick replies!

Originally Posted by Barry Unruh

Any theme not being supported and updated along with the Wordpress updates is likely to fail at some point in time. Whether it is next week, next year, or in three years.

If you are going to buy a theme buy one with excellent support, personally I'd recommend Clickbump.

With all the discussions around here between Clickbump and CTR, my common sense tells me to consider Clickbump.

It also tells me that without support, themes can fail to stop working with any given Wordpress update. This thinking goes without any technical knowledge about how the 2 work together(meaning, themes and Wordpress).

Originally Posted by outwest

I have never heard CTR does not work
Many people are using it and are happy with it

I have just heard its not supported

I also heard, or actually read, that it does continue to work and work quite well.

My understanding of it all comes down to the design layout of your site no matter what theme you may use.

Thanks Again for your answers,

Joe

[outwest]

I hadnt thought about compatibility with future updates of wordpress, which might be an issue if the person who wrote CTR is no longer able to be contacted, and is not able to update the program. That might be an issue some day down the road

My main problem with CTR is
IF it indeed is not supported any more (lets assume that it is not)

If this is true, are they making potential buyers aware of this fact?
They continue to sell it for 67 dollars (not cheap) and I dont think many people would buy it, if they knew it is not supported

If CTR is still being supported , well
lets ask

Have any of you guys who use the software, have you tried to contact support?

[Joe J]

outwest

Last time I looked(yesterday), their forum had several questions that went unanswered.

[outwest]

Originally Posted by Joe J

outwest

Last time I looked(yesterday), their forum had several questions that went unanswered.

Hmm when is the last time they answered questions on the forum?
Could be just whatever category you viewed was not much traffic.

If CTR is still being supported I will retract my previous statements, I am now at the point of asking if anyone has any success contacting support there.

[Joe J]

Originally Posted by outwest

Hmm when is the last time they answered questions on the forum?
Could be just whatever category you viewed was not much traffic.

If CTR is still being supported I will retract my previous statements, I am now at the point of asking if anyone has any success contacting support there.

Looks like May 13th was the last post the Developer had made.

Maybe you'll have some answers here from current users.

I'm figuring I could wait and get the rest of my project together before deciding.

Thanks Again

[outwest]

Yes and I heard he sold the CTR to someone else could be the reason 6 months no support

[Barry Unruh]

Actually if your check the Flippa sales records of when Eppie tried to sell the CTR-Theme site it did not sell. I believe he is still the owner which would be reinforced by the fact the technical contact and administrative contact for the domain name still shows Eppie's email address.

Not sure what is going on there....

[outwest]

Originally Posted by Barry Unruh

Actually if your check the Flippa sales records of when Eppie tried to sell the CTR-Theme site it did not sell. I believe he is still the owner which would be reinforced by the fact the technical contact and administrative contact for the domain name still shows Eppie's email address.

Not sure what is going on there....

Interesting

[Zeb]

I've tried contacting Eppie numerous times but i can't get the life out of him to reply back to me. Some questions are even about buying a developers license but it seems that he's not interested in making more money.

Strange though as this silence from Eppie is simply weird. Maybe he just doesn't care anymore? Prove me wrong.

[yukon]

The real question is do you need a payed theme?

If that payed theme isn't paying for itself, then support is the least of your problems.

A structured theme that helps get you double/triple SERP listings is going to deliver more traffic from the SERPs, the rest is easy (tweaking Adsense size/location, colors, etc...).

[outwest]

Silo Structure is proven to get higher SERPs....google loves it

try to program that into a wp theme yourself
good luck

Clickbump has Silo Structure out of the box

[Joe J]

Originally Posted by yukon

The real question is do you need a payed theme?

If that payed theme isn't paying for itself, then support is the least of your problems.

A structured theme that helps get you double/triple SERP listings is going to deliver more traffic from the SERPs, the rest is easy (tweaking Adsense size/location, colors, etc...).

This is the thinking that I have settled into.

Just do a little search on what layout works for the successful users of Adsense or do your own testing(which I would think is very time consuming in the beginning) and make your site layout comparable(not stealing it but understanding the sizes, colors, etc.) that you mention.

Thanks

Joe

[outwest]

Not everyone can program or code their own theme like you
Yukon

[Barry Unruh]

Originally Posted by yukon

The real question is do you need a payed theme?

If that payed theme isn't paying for itself, then support is the least of your problems.

A structured theme that helps get you double/triple SERP listings is going to deliver more traffic from the SERPs, the rest is easy (tweaking Adsense size/location, colors, etc...).

Do you need a paid theme? Absolutely not...

But..If you can pay $17 to $97 one time for a paid theme which reduces your work by an hour or more for every blog you create is it a good investment?

The Clickbump theme is a structured theme already. When you can grab the base theme for $17 how long would it take for your to have a good return on investment in just time savings?

The answer is 2 blogs....Because on the first blog you will spend the same amount of time learning about Clickbump as you would tweaking a different non-optimized theme. On the second blog you will have it up and running in minutes..where you will still need to tweak the non-optimized theme.

I think your advice is good, but overlooks the real benefits of an optimized theme which is time-savings along with high CTR.

[outwest]

I cant program my own theme
I just am not that advanced. I dont have the skills

I would imagine that Clickbump has spent 500 hours at least programming his theme
(Scott). I would also venture to guess that 99 percent of board members do not have the programming skills to program a theme as advanced and as slick As Clickbump.

When most webmaster code their own themes, IMO they basically tweak a theme they found out there, and change the layout a bit to suit their needs. This is far Different from the
Sophistication of a theme like Clickbump. I would call Clickbump more of a
Wordpress Engine, than a theme.

Clickbump, once you buy it you see that they have actually gone in and almost restructured Wordpress , refined it, and expanded it, to an amazing degree, the Clickbump theme actually makes wordpress much more powerful and gives you much more ability to customize it to your liking, especially when it comes to making Adsense sites. This to me is something that I have not found before.


I value my time
I get to utilize a theme that is that advanced, a program that has options and abilities on it that most webmasters have not even thought of , much less have the ability to write the code for......... and a program that probably took Months to program......and pay only 47 dollars for the privelege



to me thats a good use of my time

[clickbump]

Originally Posted by outwest

I would call Clickbump more of a
Wordpress Engine, than a theme.

Very keen observation The original theme was called just that, "ClickBump Engine". I just changed the name recently to "ClickBump 5" to reflect the flexibility of the 5th generation of the core software.

Clickbump, once you buy it you see that they have actually gone in and almost restructured Wordpress , refined it, and expanded it, to an amazing degree, the Clickbump theme actually makes wordpress much more powerful and gives you much more ability to customize it to your liking, especially when it comes to making Adsense sites. This to me is something that I have not found before.

Very well said. Thanks.

I would imagine that Clickbump has spent 500 hours at least programming his theme
(Scott).

That's a pretty good estimate, I'd say double that number and you're pretty close. The theme has been in development since mid 2009 and is now in its 5th generation.