So, google also dislikes "sponsored" wp themes now...

12 years ago

This isn't news. They've always been displeased with those types of links, and have for a long time been taking manual actions on those who abused it. Now that action is algorithmic in the part-form of Penguin.

Case in point: wpmu.org. That site got dinged by Penguin because of the large number of sitewide links it has been receiving due to free themes it distributes and from elsewhere.

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georgem78

12 years ago

Google keeps on getting smarter. In the process of upgrading their search results, some genuinely good sides are also getting penalised.

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dp40oz

12 years ago

If you are linking back to the actual themes website thats fine. Its when you are linking to stuff like "cheap car insurance" from the footer of the theme you created.

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dracoboar

12 years ago

Originally Posted by lniskasaari

I don`t know if you`ve read this already but google seems to also dislike wp themes that have "made by someone" link at the bottom of your wp theme:

Google wants me to remove links from sponsored WordPress themes Google SEO News and Discussion forum at WebmasterWorld

Feel free to share if you`ve seen any difference in serps (especially after panda / penguin) when using free sponsored themes...

-Lauri-

Since these themes are apparently used because they are of high quality, it kinda puts yet another hole in the google "content is king" pr tagline.

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wolfmmiii

12 years ago

Originally Posted by dracoboar

Since these themes are apparently used because they are of high quality, it kinda puts yet another hole in the google "content is king" pr tagline.

Have u seen some of these themes? Quality? Not necessarily. To be honest, someone using a free sponsored theme is more likely to spin up drek than the person spending $300 for a custom theme.

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dracoboar

12 years ago

Originally Posted by wolfmmiii

Have u seen some of these themes? Quality? Not necessarily. To be honest, someone using a free sponsored theme is more likely to spin up drek than the person spending $300 for a custom theme.

fair enough but ostensibly the ones that are of higher quality should propogate more.

Thus people are putting out content and then people are using that "quality content" and linking back to it. Unless the links are misleading are going to a completely different place this is exactly what is supposed to happen.

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Mike Anthony

12 years ago

HI Draco,

I think you are misunderstanding what Sponsored means. Its not the author or copyright link. Its where you sponsor as in pay the author for a link in the footer of the theme. Its a bought link

Originally Posted by dracoboar

Thus people are putting out content and then people are using that "quality content" and linking back to it. Unless the links are misleading are going to a completely different place this is exactly what is supposed to happen.

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dracoboar

12 years ago

Originally Posted by Mike Anthony

HI Draco,

I think you are misunderstanding what Sponsored means. Its not the author or copyright link. Its where you sponsor as in pay the author for a link in the footer of the theme. Its a bought link

yes if i misread this than that would be totally different 100% true

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wolfmmiii

12 years ago

Originally Posted by lniskasaari

I don`t know if you`ve read this already but google seems to also dislike wp themes that have "made by someone" link at the bottom of your wp theme:

Google wants me to remove links from sponsored WordPress themes Google SEO News and Discussion forum at WebmasterWorld

Feel free to share if you`ve seen any difference in serps (especially after panda / penguin) when using free sponsored themes...

-Lauri-

Nothing new. Google has always had issues with self-created links, including sponsored WP links.

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rahmanpaidar

12 years ago

Originally Posted by wolfmmiii

Nothing new. Google has always had issues with self-created links, including sponsored WP links.

Using a theme and accepting it with all the creator copyrights is far
from self creating the links. This looks to me as natural links as when in
an article that argues about one subject, the author links ogranically to a
page. There is nothing much difference between voting to a page
organically by linking to it and voting to a theme and a designer by
using his or her theme and accepting the copyright.

I think Google has gone overboard and they do not want to remember
when they came to the world of internet, people were there and linking to
each others for all the purposes. Even the page rank system was
established at that time by its creators by accepting the current world of
internet that people were linking to each other for whatever
purpose.

It seems the search engines are now the problem more than the
webmasters. Each google struggling about removing the links and hating
all those links that are made daily, seems to me to be a reminder of failing
the page rank system that is the back bone of Google algorithm.

I'm not talking about how bad is web spam and spamming the serp. Google
should have devised a remedy already. I'm talking about the deviation
made to the term "Search Engine Quality Guidelines" during these years
and how they interpret it as they want.

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dracoboar

12 years ago

Originally Posted by rahmanpaidar

Using a theme and accepting it with all his/her creator copyrights is far
from self creating the links. This looks to me as natural links as when in
an article that argues about one subject, the author links ogranically to a
page. There are nothing much differences between voiting to a page
organically by linking to it and voting to a theme and a designer by
using his or her theme and accepting the copyright.

I think Google has gone overboard and they do not want to remember
when they came to the world of internet, people were there and linking to
each others for all the purposes. Even the page rank system was
established at that time by its creators by accepting the current world of
internet that people were linking to each other for whatever
purpose.

It seems the search engines are now the problem more than the
webmasters. Each google struggling about removing the links and hating
all those links that are made daily, seems to me to be a reminder of failing
the page rank system that is the bare bone of Google algorithm.

I'm not talking about how bad is web spam and spamming the serp. Google
should have devised a remedy already. I'm talking about the deviation
made for the term "Search Engine Quality Guidelines" during these years
and how they interpret it as they want.

summed up perfectly IMO

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colourofspring

12 years ago

Great points rahman - it seems Google is going way over board with their "hate" for links. Whereas before links were instructive and symbiotically helped both Google and the linked-to site, now it seems they are destructive and Google doesn't like them - in fact, Google goes so far as to PENALISE them. What's going to happen is a climate of fear - people won't link out so freely anymore - not like they did back in the 90s BEFORE GOOGLE EXISTED (and I've been around a lot longer than Google has online). People will see links as potentially fingers of blame after some future Google algo update deems it so. Sad.

Next up: Paid directory submissions will be seen as paid links, not paid reviews. Seriously, think twice before renewing you botw.org, business.com or Yahoo! directory listing. Fingers of blame. Don't pay for links....

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paulgl

12 years ago

Google does not hate links.

It makes sense to discount those WP links.

Why should they count just because some sap
using WP can't do shinola without a lame theme,
so the creator or whoever gets a free link from
whatever idiotic site uses it? Makes sense to me.

Why should I have to compete with a WP theme
creator?

But it's not google hating links. People confuse
a whole lotta things with google. It makes
good business sense to DISCOUNT links that are
there just because.

LOL! Joust thought of something funny. How about
really doing some damage, as some WF claim. Why
not create the spammiest, crappiest site, linking to
all sorts of illegal and/or questionable content, stuffing
the site to the max. Then see what kind of juice the
sponsored link at the bottom gets!

Paul

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dracoboar

12 years ago

Originally Posted by paulgl

Google does not hate links.

It makes sense to discount those WP links.

Why should they count just because some sap
using WP can't do shinola without a lame theme,
so the creator or whoever gets a free link from
whatever idiotic site uses it? Makes sense to me.

Why should I have to compete with a WP theme
creator?

But it's not google hating links. People confuse
a whole lotta things with google. It makes
good business sense to DISCOUNT links that are
there just because.

LOL! Joust thought of something funny. How about
really doing some damage, as some WF claim. Why
not create the spammiest, crappiest site, linking to
all sorts of illegal and/or questionable content, stuffing
the site to the max. Then see what kind of juice the
sponsored link at the bottom gets!

Paul

How is this any different than anyone else providing quality content that is useful to a ton of people. Just because you dont find WP themes useful doesnt mean they are not useful to others.

I am not saying google should or shouldnt discount these links what I am saying is this would be the exact definition of quality content, which shows google is talking out its ass when it claims content is king. Then again many of us already knew that.

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kylemarvin

12 years ago

Originally Posted by paulgl

Google does not hate links.

It makes sense to discount those WP links.

Why should they count just because some sap
using WP can't do shinola without a lame theme,
so the creator or whoever gets a free link from
whatever idiotic site uses it? Makes sense to me.

Why should I have to compete with a WP theme
creator?

But it's not google hating links. People confuse
a whole lotta things with google. It makes
good business sense to DISCOUNT links that are
there just because.

LOL! Joust thought of something funny. How about
really doing some damage, as some WF claim. Why
not create the spammiest, crappiest site, linking to
all sorts of illegal and/or questionable content, stuffing
the site to the max. Then see what kind of juice the
sponsored link at the bottom gets!

Paul

Having the links discounted and having them actually penalized are 2 different things. Also, there's a flaw in Google's thinking because many of these themes I've seen, or plugins or whatever, have the OPTION on the back end to show the link. If the person is greatful for the theme, and got it for free, and is willing to post that link, even if it's pre-programmed, why SHOULDN"T that count? If the site owner is willing to share some love in exchange for using the FREE thing they made, that SHOULD be counted as a legit backlink.

I also don't know for sure, but I have a feeling that this penalty could have stemmed more from the exact anchor text penalty rather than a straight attack on those types of links. Because by nature, they're all the same anchor text.

The exact phrase anchor text penalty is the stupidest piece of any Google update to this point. For years, they preached to make sure your anchor text is what your content is about, so that they know what to rank you for, now they penalize you for it.

That's like the government encouraging everyone to smoke crack, then years later, make it illegal and give them the death sentence..

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colourofspring

12 years ago

Originally Posted by paulgl

Google does not hate links.

It makes sense to discount those WP links.

Why should they count just because some sap
using WP can't do shinola without a lame theme,
so the creator or whoever gets a free link from
whatever idiotic site uses it? Makes sense to me.

Why should I have to compete with a WP theme
creator?

But it's not google hating links. People confuse
a whole lotta things with google. It makes
good business sense to DISCOUNT links that are
there just because.

LOL! Joust thought of something funny. How about
really doing some damage, as some WF claim. Why
not create the spammiest, crappiest site, linking to
all sorts of illegal and/or questionable content, stuffing
the site to the max. Then see what kind of juice the
sponsored link at the bottom gets!

Paul

OK, Paul I get it. You give something away for free to someone, and they link back to you in appreciation (they have the option NOT to link back to you). And if they appreciate you, you get punished for that appreciation. Yep, I get it.

So natural link has moved on even more. Link baiting is out. I swear I will report to Google any instance of link baiting. White hats look out.

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lukemeister 12 years ago

I don't get it, instead of telling everybody how they should link to each other, why don't they just discount links they don't like and move on? People link pages to other pages for all sorts of reasons, some bad, some good. But instead of trying to police how people are linking, why not just count the links they want to count?

I get the feeling their algorithm isn't as good as they want people to believe, if they are trying to police how people are linking, that tells me they don't know how to make their algorithm work with the way people are currently using the web.

Trying to police linking on the Internet is about as goofy as trying to police every instance of jaywalking in the US.

For some reason, whenever I try to figure in my head how Google works, I think of this:

seinfeld - movie phone - YouTube

I have no idea where I'm going with this comment.
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TheProgrammer

12 years ago

Oh another bad news, i was really thinking to sponsor wp theme under 200bucks. but after reading this my mind has been changed. thanks to lniskasaari for saving my money and to reduce the risk

.

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ishuvonet

12 years ago

Well Google always hate sponsored or any sort of paid links.Not amazed if they cover it in their penguin update.But however I personally believe its one of the worst update by Google since many many legitimate pure white hat websites also get hit.

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Shuvo Shahid

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So, google also dislikes "sponsored" wp themes now...

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