Impact of Footer Links on Quality Perception

[bikramksingh]

Hi,

I am about to start couple of blogs, and as I do not have budget to get a custom theme designed for my blogs (Even I do not know how much will it cost), I decided to go for either a free theme or buy a theme off-the-shelf, and after going through 10-15 respected wordpress themes seller (studiopress, wootheme, themeforest, and through the website of all the commercial theme seller listed on wordpress.org), and twice as many free WordPress theme online directories, I decided to settle down for a semi-free theme.

By semi-free theme I mean, If I decide to use the theme from say Website X then as stated in the theme usage terms by the website, I will have to retain the following sentences along with the links in the footer:

XXX Theme is Designed By: X Company & made free by X website

In the above written ,Footer links to the designer and sponsor of theme are mandatory while using this Theme.

This is the situation. Now, My questions are:

1. If I use the themes that comes with this kind of usage restriction for my blogs then will my blogs be seen as second-rate, or mediocre by the visitors, search engines and professional?

2. Can I reduce the opacity of Footer links and texts without violating the copyright law? And will it be aright? And is it advisable?

3. Will this kind of theme negatively reflect on the quality of my blog? I must add here, I will change the color scheme and do some editing to the themes like, will add twitter feeds, social networking links etc. to the theme. And I also emphasize that I am planning to not start this website as hobby, but to establish it as a commercial blog that can earn. Will themes with this kind of footer backfire?

4. Will it effect SEO of my Blogs?

Please help me out.

Thanks for your time
Bikram