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Does theme sponsorship works for you?

by Adie
7 replies
  • SEO
    • |
In the past I sponsored a wp theme for $50. That was 5 years ago for my seo blog. After a couple of more years, my blog got hundreds of thousands of backlinks and reached PR4. I then sold the blog for around $4k and started a new project. Now I am thinking of sponsoring again for my 2 authority sites.

Is anybody here have success in sponsoring a wordpress theme?
related feedback are appreciated.
Thanks
#sponsorship #theme #works
  • Profile picture of the author garmahis
    I'm wondering how do you find a sponsorship opportunity?
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  • Profile picture of the author yukon
    Banned
    Google has mentioned cracking down on those types of links. IMO the main problem would be that those types of links are usually site wide footer links. A possible way around that would be some PHP/IF/ELSE code to only have links on the index page or maybe a couple of internal category pages (nothing more).

    Yahoo & Bing wouldn't matter about having loads of footer links, I think they gave up on updating their algos. years ago. They both still have traffic, just not as much as Google.
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    • Profile picture of the author Adie
      Originally Posted by yukon View Post

      Google has mentioned cracking down on those types of links. IMO the main problem would be that those types of links are usually site wide footer links. A possible way around that would be some PHP/IF/ELSE code to only have links on the index page or maybe a couple of internal category pages (nothing more).

      Yahoo & Bing wouldn't matter about having loads of footer links, I think they gave up on updating their algos. years ago. They both still have traffic, just not as much as Google.
      This is exactly what I am thinking as well that's why I am hesitant to do it again. But I think I might try not for personal blog but for my affiliate sites.

      Originally Posted by garmahis View Post

      I'm wondering how do you find a sponsorship opportunity?
      There's a lot if you ask Google
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  • Profile picture of the author Joseph Then
    I believe that Google is taking down those links only if they are sponsored link.

    However, if the backlinks goes back to the creator of the theme, will Google penalize that link? Personally I feel that it's will not.

    It sounds OK that a dog training website has the footer that says, "XYZ themed by ABCTheme" and ABCTheme website is a web design or WP theme related website.

    But it doesn't sound OK that a dog training website has the footer that says "XYZ theme by Weight Loss" and it links to a full weight loss website.

    In the end, I think that if it has relations, Google may not penalize backlinks that goes back to the creator.

    What do you think? I could be wrong but from what I see from many themes, it seems like so.
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  • Profile picture of the author Bambu
    Do not use exact match anchor text for your and you can avoid penguin penalties. These types of links have been devalued some by Google, but I believe they can still push you up the SERPs if used properly.
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  • Profile picture of the author Matthew Anton
    In the past I invested heavily in this, but like Yukon said there are a few problems you will run into.

    1) sitewide footer links (less natural than non-sitewide links)
    2) anchor text of the sponsored theme remains the same, even if it goes "viral" with 50k pages all linking back with the same phrase
    3) can be hit or miss with your budget. Many will fail and a few homeruns:

    My experience dates back from 2007 buying in the digitalpoint themes sponsorship section. I had a website with over 3 million backlinks. It's still very effective but the key to the game now is diversity with anchor text and multiple theme creators / websites vs putting all your eggs in one developer and/or anchor phrase.
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    BacklinksIndexer - automated index/bulk links
    TwitterBacklinks - retweets service
    Web2.0Backlinks - web2.0 creation/link building
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  • Profile picture of the author Adie
    I guess sponsoring multiple themes will still be a good idea with a variety of keywords/anchor texts.
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