My gripe with Thesis Theme for Wordpress.

20 replies
  • SEO
  • |
I want to vent off a bit since ATM everyone and their mama is obviously thinking that thesis is the greatest wordpress theme, especially in regards to SEO.

Moreover, i slowly tend to think that those reviews are rather made by people who dont know too much about SEO, respective hype aka "Well Matt Cutts uses Thesis, so it must be good."

1) Flaw:

As soon as you make a static front page (static page or sticky blog on front page) Thesis exchanges H1 and H2 header tags. While with normal posts and blog entries titles are in H1 - all of a sudden, on the font page they set the PAGE/BLOG TITLE to H2 (!!) and use H1 for the blog "tagline".

The reasoning for this totally eludes me. I tried to understand the explanation for this given, but it still didnt make any sense whatsoever

2) HTML/XHTML validation errors. Thesis throws a LOT of them, even many of the showcase sites throw LOTS of W3 validation errors. This is sad since proper W3 validation is *also* somewhat important for SEO.

3) I think it's a little outrageous that you first have to purchase this expensive theme, otherwise you dont have access to the support forum.

Needless to say, you wont see the flaws of this theme unless you buy it. I dont like this philosophy AT ALL.

I am not saying that thesis is a bad theme, but in terms of SEO and customization it does NOT do more than what i already saw with other, often free themes. I don't think that thesis does anything special in regards to SEO what other good themes don't do already - and also in regards to customization i have seen themes which allowed more, for example "flexiblity theme".

It also lacks some more advanced features for design, IMHO.

For example: Instead of providing you options for different styles, buttons, shapes etc...all thesis does is throw a text editor in your face for *hand editing* the CSS styles... <--

They want $164 for this theme for an unlimited site license, in my opinion very overpriced for the features offered. $59 would be way more reasonable, and the fact that Matt Cutts uses it still doesn't make it the "best theme ever".

In terms of SEO, i think that with ANY other theme which doesn't do crucial SEO mistakes (like blog title in H1 throughout the site) in conjunction with the platinum/all-in-one SEO plugin you will get the same (if not better) SEO features easily.

Rant off..
#gripe #theme #thesis #wordpress
  • Profile picture of the author roxstar
    Hahaha well, you certainly went off on a little bit of a rant =P I'm not an expert at Thesis, and I have tried beta versions and stuff, which were very buggy - but I'd've thought that the final versions would be better.

    And that's an f'ing expensive theme, as well. I believe it does, and doesn't deserve the name of "best theme ever" because it has tons, and tons of functions. I run on the Atomic Blogging theme by Alvin Phang, and it works great. Not nearly as customizable, but it's nice.

    Lol - you should show them this forum thread XD I'm assuming you have bought the theme, right?

    -Kris Roxas
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  • Profile picture of the author clickbump
    And to think I was just about to add a Thesis clone to CE2! Actually, now that I know what they do with heading tags, I'll probably do it anyway (and do it right)...
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  • Profile picture of the author tommen
    There are other great premium Wordpress themes available than Thesis.I often redesign my blog when a new year begins, this time I chose a premium theme from Studiopress.com
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    • Profile picture of the author Chris_x
      Originally Posted by tommen View Post

      There are other great premium Wordpress themes available than Thesis.I often redesign my blog when a new year begins, this time I chose a premium theme from Studiopress.com
      Ill be checking out Studiopress...always keen on new, professionally designed themes.
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  • Profile picture of the author Sandy Cormack
    I just started using Squeeze Theme. The learning curve is *steep* and to do what I wanted it to do I needed to hack the .php files but their tech support guided me through the process and now it's just a matter of putting in the time to get it right.

    For my purposes it is *perfect.* I can use it as a sales page, or as a killer article marketing blog. Both the header and the footer are fully widgetized, and the custom setup screen lets you place optin/sales elements in both. The result is that all my blog articles lead off with a sales element and end with a video and an optin.
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  • Profile picture of the author Chris_x
    Do you have to upgrade Wordpress to change the theme? Or do most wordpress users download it and then upload to a server with their theme of choice?

    Chris
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  • I can see the validity of your points. I use a lot of Premium Themes and I don't really care for their approach either. But it does have some interesting features built in.

    Bottom line is Thesis will not appeal to everybody. However there business model seems to be working just fine.

    Most developers limit support access to protect their profits.

    I find irony in a statement that some company is charging too much... but the intent of the purchase is to use the product to earn a profit.

    If they were charging too much no one would buy it.

    They are only charging too much for the people who can not afford the risk of purchase.

    In the same way that Mercedes and BMW charge too much.

    It's all about knowing your market.
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  • Profile picture of the author bgmacaw
    Originally Posted by GeorgR. View Post

    This is sad since proper W3 validation is *also* somewhat important for SEO.
    It's not important at all. As long as the page can be read properly by bots it doesn't matter and they're designed to take older coding methods (aka invalid code) into account.

    There could be cases where bad HTML code causes bots problems but it will also cause visual problems as well on one or more of the major browsers.

    Originally Posted by GeorgR. View Post

    3) I think it's a little outrageous that you first have to purchase this expensive theme, otherwise you dont have access to the support forum.
    I don't think that's bad. I don't give people full access to my support forums until they've bought the product.

    Originally Posted by GeorgR. View Post

    I don't think that thesis does anything special in regards to SEO what other good themes don't do already
    I agree with you there, especially when you consider plugins like All-In-One SEO or Platinum SEO, as you mentioned.

    Originally Posted by GeorgR. View Post

    They want $164 for this theme for an unlimited site license, in my opinion very overpriced for the features offered.
    I agree, it's overpriced, but people are apparently willing to pay. Gotta love that marketing stuff.
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    • Profile picture of the author WareTime
      Originally Posted by bgmacaw View Post

      It's not important at all. As long as the page can be read properly by bots it doesn't matter and they're designed to take older coding methods (aka invalid code) into account.
      True w3c code validation is the least of your seo worries. Pick any niche you want and tell me how many of the top 10 sites validate. Usually it's 1 or less.
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      • Profile picture of the author bigbyte
        Thesis has a learning curve, but once you get the hang of it, it is awesome. I can understand that you might struggle and blame the theme, but it takes time to learn. You do not learn SEO in one day either.

        And I do not think the price is too high considering you get lifetime updates and support for a one time payment. I have seen too many other paid themes get abandoned after a while and you're stuck with the outdated software (Revolution Theme is one that comes to my mind - paid a lot for a developer package and then they screw you from behind).

        If you look around some of the top blogs use Thesis for a reason and they rank high for a reason.
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  • Profile picture of the author Fraggler
    I haven't come across a theme that is as easy to manipulate in any format you want as Thesis. No, it isn't great for someone who wants an out of the box good looking theme. It is great for web developers and other people with some programming knowledge to create a custom theme full of thirdy party scripts and non-wordpress plugins and widgets. It is awesome for people who want to turn a design for what would usually be a static site into a wordpress/CMS system.

    Rather than hacking through numerous template files to add a simple script, you edit one file and tell it where you want it through the hook system. This gives you great portability as well. You can create versions of your custom template by simply copying this one file. You can add or remove functions to other websites easily too.

    It is easy to integrate with the custom fields of a post/page which allows for some really cool tricks. These can be achieved with other themes too but it is a lot messier.

    If you are put off by editing a CSS file to change the look of something then the theme was never suited to you in the first place.

    Regarding SEO, I did notice the fixed page problem with the H1 tag. I simply replaced it with my own header and swapped the h2 with a h1.

    W3 validation is nothing but a badge for the geeks at highschool who love to skite how they program their sites in vi. Google has said it means nothing. Google reads a site in as source code, not rendered pages.

    Another important factor for a good SEO theme is that the main content is displayed before sidebars. Thesis does this. Header use is fine apart from the static page that you pointed out. The rest of the features are pretty standard and as mentioned can be achieved by other plugins.

    I don't think the price is expensive either. If you learn to use the theme properly you will be using it for all of your sites. The designs will change but the functions you create can be used for your entire future portfolio. You don't need to learn a new theme and locate where to place your functions for every new theme you download. This saves so much time and time is money!

    Thesis should really be marketed as a framework rather than a theme. Without some design skills and html/css knowledge you will struggle to realise its power.

    (BTW: I couldn't give a rat's if Matt Cutts uses it and I'm not an affiliate.)
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    • Profile picture of the author syankee
      [QUOTE=Fraggler;1769364]I haven't come across a theme that is as easy to manipulate in any format you want as Thesis. No, it isn't great for someone who wants an out of the box good looking theme. It is great for web developers and other people with some programming knowledge to create a custom theme full of thirdy party scripts and non-wordpress plugins and widgets. It is awesome for people who want to turn a design for what would usually be a static site into a wordpress/CMS system.

      I'm with you there, Bucko.

      Problem is, they don't tell you -up front -that if you're a normal web dunce like yours truly, you won't be able to get Thesis up and running. With all due respect to the developers, this is not a tool for the neophyte. I bought it and just about lost my mind trying to figure out how it worked. Gave it to my designer, who at least has some rudimentary coding experience -ditto. I finally shelved it and went with a cheaper, more idiot-friendly template.

      Unless you know quite a bit about programming -stay away from Thesis.

      Steve
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  • Profile picture of the author EyeInTriangle
    It's a great template, but I would like to see them have an unlimited price of $99, and I don't think that at this point in time lowering their prices would be such a bad idea for business on their end.
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  • Profile picture of the author jazbo
    validation is not relevant to SEO (although page loads may be).

    Why not just use one of the ten thousand free wordpress themes out there and use an SEO plugin? Seems simple enough really rather than shelling out cash for no reason.
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    • Profile picture of the author bluelambda
      I don't think that ANY theme out there magically makes your blog/site SEO optimized just like that. I personally prefer a theme that has SEO features (eg meta tags, nofollow etc.) built in as I don't like to use too many plugins for fear that it will make my pages load slower. However, this is just a personal preference.

      If you know what you're doing in terms of on-page SEO, it really doesn't make a difference whether it's built into the theme or you need to use plugins.

      I don't use Thesis, but I think $164 is a reasonable price if the support is there.

      You might want to consider Frugal theme which I've used on a lot of my site. It's highly customizable and support is excellent. SEO is also built in.

      Another theme to consider is Headway theme. The visual editor feature is really attractive.

      Of course, these are more of "framework" themes designed for a high degree of customization. If you want something beautiful out of the box, I would go for StudioPress themes.
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      • Profile picture of the author Marakatapolis
        Canvas by WooThemes is very customizable by point and click (it came out on the 9th).
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  • Profile picture of the author ryanedmunds
    I have this "friend" who experimented with illegal torrent downloading and tested the thesis theme for free. He found the default main index template very annoyingly coded and the fact that even single post pages contain those irritating content boxes (also kinda' bad for SEO as we all know one post per page equals maximum signal)
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  • Profile picture of the author Splinterbiz
    I almost bought another theme yesterday, as the creator wanted only $15 for it, but what stopped me was him going on about how he's going back to school and could barely manage to throw out a tiny update requested by a user. That kind of things put me off. I have read about Thesis before, actually I even have a review on it in another browser tab, if anyone's interested (I probably found it in this forum, don't remember):

    Review of the Thesis theme

    I am still interested in Thesis, anyway.
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  • Profile picture of the author Fraggler
    No, the price isn't too high. It is just the weird mentality of the internet marketer. Everyone wants you to believe they are making a fortune but any tools they need must be dirt cheap.
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