I use the Thesis Theme on some of blogs in my network and I can tell you from first hand experience they will not automatically make your blog more authority. They are convenient because they have SEO plugins built in. What I don't like about Thesis is they are generic looking and there's not many free pre-made skins (none that I really like). And I'm not impressed with the paid skins either. I actually like Studiopress Genesis skins better... and their framework is basically the same as Thesis.

I personally don't think Thesis is worth the money.

Yeah Thesis doesn't look great if you don't make your own custom theme. The paid ones that are available are ugly. It's a good framework for building offline client sites, though. I have used it when partnering up with graphic designers. However, when it comes to IM, I prefer Studiopress (nicer skins) or just buying something from themeforest. This is especially true now that I'm focusing more on authority sites and am looking to have nicer looking websites.

There's no "best" theme for anything. It all comes down to subjective opinion.

That said, I personally think the ThemeForest themes are some of the best looking ones available.

I prefer Genesis over Thesis because i can do a lot of customization using it

As others have said, no theme is going to create an authority site by itself. Creating an authority site is about the leadership you show in your niche, the content you put up and the interaction you get. None of that has to do with a specific theme.

Of course, creating a professional design and a well laid out site also contribute strongly to a site being perceived as an 'authority' site. You can either buy a pre-nade theme or create something unique on one of the frameworks (Thesis, Genesis, etc).

To that end I do like Thesis - in fact I've used it exclusively since 2008 and the latest version offers absolutely infinite customisability. But that, in itself, is not going to create an authority site.

Cheers,

Martin.

Thesis is really a great theme but I don't think it can easily provide authority status. I have used Theme-Junkie themes and have got lot of authority sites. It entirely depends on your promotional activities to get traffic.

But still I will agree to one point that Thesis is one of the good SEO optimized themes , so that you need not install any SEO plugins additionally.

Regards
Venkat

What I have seen in people use thesis because it is SEO friendly and these days, we need it, we can customize it according what we want as well.

I've used Thesis on all my sites for a couple of years now, the basic theme is ugly but I made a few customizations to get a very clean look, nothing fancy which is what I like. I used the new Thesis 2.0 today for the first time and although it looked like a complete nightmare at first, I soon picked it up.

The best thing about Thesis is that you don't need half the plugins you would need for other themes which does help you site load faster, there are some skins for Thesis 2.0 coming out soon.

I’ve been working on a new blog using Thesis, and I think it will really show the versatility of the theme…should be up by Thursday.

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I absolutely love thesis for building an authority site! The ability to easily create multiple layouts and landing pages is fantastic.

I'm developing a free skin right now that I will release on my Thesis Theme Blog and you can sign up for updates for more Thesis updates and info on any new free thesis resources that come out.