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Negatives to using Free Wordpress Themes

by Peter Thompson
16 replies
I have heard that using free wordpress themes can be dangerous in that they may have virus and spam coding built into them or backlinks you cannot get rid of. Is this true and if so is there a way to overcome this and or are there any free wordpress sites you can trust.

Thanks in advance
#free #negatives #themes #wordpress
  • Profile picture of the author nemious
    Originally Posted by Peter Thompson View Post

    I have heard that using free wordpress themes can be dangerous in that they may have virus and spam coding built into them or backlinks you cannot get rid of. Is this true and if so is there a way to overcome this and or are there any free wordpress sites you can trust.

    Thanks in advance
    No not as far as I have seen. I have used a lot of free wordpress themes. I recently have decided to try my hand at CPA and I had to change my theme to a premium theme. This was due to the fact that I needed better control over ad placement that is not support by free themes. I was also looking for something that would rotate my ads automatically and no free themes fit the bill. Plus most premium ones are real eye candy.
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  • Profile picture of the author Micah Medina
    the thing with free themes isn't just the spam it's that they aren't kept updated. because if nobody is paying you why would you?

    stuff from the WP directory is usually safe to use. or websites that have free and premium themes.
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  • Profile picture of the author Ghoster
    I don't know about that, but $50 isn't that much of an investment. I'd say just go with a paid theme.
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    On the whole, you get what you pay for.

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    • Profile picture of the author xohaibx
      The lure of "Free WordPress Theme" can be hard to resist for a lot of people who are just starting out. Since there are hundreds of thousands of themes already available for free, paying for one seems unimportant at this point. However, there are a few disadvantages of using free WordPress Themes:

      #1: You Get What You (Don't) Pay for

      The kind of quality of free WordPress themes offer cannot be compared to the premium ones. If you want to appear professional enough for your visitors to take you seriously, then you have to go for a high quality theme.

      #2: You Find it Hard to Stand Out of the Crowd

      When your website looks similar to many other websites out there using the same free theme, you have a hard time standing out and making your own mark. Being original has its own perks. It also goes on to show that you don't take yourself seriously - so why should others?

      #3: You Can Have Problems Installing Plugins

      Free WordPress themes aren't perfect - they can have some coding issues, which can make many good plugins incompatible with them. One of the biggest perks of using WordPress is that it lets you use various plugins, why not get the most out of it?

      #4: You Don't Get Premium Support with Free Themes

      Finally, using a free theme means that you won't have access to stellar support, which is much needed when you want to run your website without any hiccups.
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  • Profile picture of the author LimitlessTraffic
    I'm using free wordpress themes and I get lots of spammy comments.

    Is this normal or is it because it is a free theme?
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    • Profile picture of the author Micah Medina
      Originally Posted by LimitlessTraffic View Post

      I'm using free wordpress themes and I get lots of spammy comments.

      Is this normal or is it because it is a free theme?
      It's normal.
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    • Profile picture of the author wpninja2013
      Originally Posted by LimitlessTraffic View Post

      I'm using free wordpress themes and I get lots of spammy comments.

      Is this normal or is it because it is a free theme?
      Install Akismet plugin which can combine most of spammy comments.
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  • Profile picture of the author KishanS
    Originally Posted by Peter Thompson View Post

    I have heard that using free wordpress themes can be dangerous in that they may have virus and spam coding built into them or backlinks you cannot get rid of. Is this true and if so is there a way to overcome this and or are there any free wordpress sites you can trust.

    Thanks in advance
    This can be true depending on where you download your themes from. Every premium theme developer usually release few free themes that they often update so you might want to download from their site. Download your themes only from the sites you trust, it is very easy to inject a virus in a WP theme so be careful.
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  • Profile picture of the author Hartmann
    Start with a free theme and then reinvest profits into a paid theme when you need it...for all of the points mentioned above...mainly the up to date thing.
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  • Profile picture of the author Mollywhite
    Of course there're both cons and pros for free WordPress Themes.
    Just like the saying in this post.
    Just Sharing with U: Pros and Cons for Free WordPress Themes.
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  • Profile picture of the author wpninja2013
    It is safe to use free themes at wordpress.org repository, it has strict checking on submitted themes. However, it is a bit of risky if you download free theme on sites led to by search engines.
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  • Profile picture of the author Peter Thompson
    Thanks for all the feedback. Greatly appreciated
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    Peter Thompson
    supa2007
    http://www.pjtwebconcepts.com/
    Your home for building on the web

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  • Profile picture of the author Peter Thompson
    On another note does anyone on here use any other platforms for sites they would recommend. I use Weebly for a few sites. What do people think of Weebly and has anyone had success driving traffic to Weebly sites through on page seo.
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    Peter Thompson
    supa2007
    http://www.pjtwebconcepts.com/
    Your home for building on the web

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  • Profile picture of the author Peter Thompson
    Anyone got any feedback on Weebly ?
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    Peter Thompson
    supa2007
    http://www.pjtwebconcepts.com/
    Your home for building on the web

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  • Profile picture of the author Weedy92
    Most are loaded with backlinks in the footer, etc.

    + There's also always the problem that a good % of "free" themes have malware in the code that you can't see without digging through.

    Not worth it.

    Buy a prem theme or make your own, if you seriously want to run a business.
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  • Profile picture of the author ronrule
    What's your time worth?

    Go on Themeforest and spend $40 man, it's a better deal than spending hours sifting through hundreds of free themes for the right one.
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    -
    Ron Rule
    http://ronrule.com

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