I’m sure all of us here who are using WordPress are aware of Premium and free WordPress themes and their advantages and disadvantages.
And you may be aware that you can easily find any Premium WordPress theme on torrent or warez site. Many bloggers, don’t even realize that these hacked WordPress themes are slowly effecting your blog, as many of them contains encrypted links, code.
In this post we will look into some potential drawback of using hacked WordPress themes on your blog.
When we start blogging we have dreams to earn a lot of money from our blog. And it is possible if we blog with hard work and follow a full proof strategy.We have to do following expenses in blogging.
- A well performing computer system
- A broadband internet connection
- Webhosting and Domain expenses
- Blog theme and its customization costs
- SEO optimization cost
If you are an expert then you can bypass theme customization and SEO etc. But most of the people do not have proper knowledge of web designing and SEO, you can hire a WordPress theme development company and get a new WordPress theme designed especially for your brand.
Expenses on WordPress theme starts from as low as $20 to as high as $2000. Depending upon level of customization, designing and other cost. But, you can always start with any Premium WordPress themes with as low as $20-$30.
Check out: Best WordPress themes for you
So my aim of mentioning this is that the total of all these expenses is very small amount of money and it seems almost nothing comparing with any small business investment. We have to spend thousand dollars for any smaller business.
Finally saving of some dollars will ruin your blogging business
Potential Harms of Using a Pirated hacked WordPress Theme
Pirated copies of premium wordpress themes such as Genesis, Astra Pro, GeneratePress are easily available on many websites and these are easily downloadable. An ignorant person becomes happy getting top class premium themes free of cost but he/she doesn’t know the reality of these free copies of themes.
Most of free downloadable premium pirated themes have malware and hacking scripts
Below are the possible harms of illegal copies of WordPress pro themes
- Theme company may take legal action against you.
- Your web host may suspend your hosting account.
- Your wordpress may get adwares controlled by a hacker and your blog will show unknown advertising.
- Your blog may be controlled by a hidden administrator.
- Your blog may be completely stolen.
- The anti-virus and anti-spyware softwares can block access of users to your blog.
- Google and other search engines may flag your computer as a harmful website.
- Google and other search engine may remove your website from index permanently.
Why use a Hacked WordPress Themes to save some dollars only?
With a successful blog you can earn thousand dollars per month. But your pirated theme with hacking and malicious codes may destroy your successful blog within a few days only.
The blog which is giving you a big amount of money will be stolen in few minutes and you will only rub your hands with feelings of great dejection.Your blog will be disappeared from search engines being declared as a spyware website. Security softwares will block your blog on computers.
Decision in Your Hand
Premium wordpress themes prices are very cheap.
- Genesis themes offers 49 premium designs only for $59. You can also get membership support.
- Popular SEO optimized Astra Pro is available only for $59.
So use genuine Premium Themes for your wordpress and save it from possible disadvantages of hacked WordPress themes. I hope you will never ignore this warning if you are a professional blogger or a business website owner.
Do let us know if you are a victim of pirated and nulled premium WordPress theme?
Must say, Nice Article mate.
If you use wordpress, there are many cool free themes and most of them are SEO friendly 🙂
Thanks for sharing this shariq. free wordpress themes are better than hacked one, so after blogs gets popular we can change the theme to a paid theme.
Hi
I am not agree to you because over 80% new bloggers are using pirated premium themes.
Agree with Theme company may take legal action against you.
James – You can get a free theme from wordpres directory and start working on your best niche . Once you see that reader like your blog and you have capacity to move it on big heights than you must spend money on premium themes and start looking for further services . I have noticed many new bloggers – They buy new themes and invest good money on other sources . But after few weeks or months when they don’t make money and than they stop blogging . So indirectly they wasted money as well as a good domain name …
You are right.
Blogging needs a sea of patience. Never lose your patience and you will be succeeded
At one point should a blogger look into purchasing a theme versus a free one? Should a new blog use a purchased theme or should it wait until the site is making some money to justify the cost of purchasing a theme?
It depends on your budget.
If you have sufficient money then you should use premium services from the beginning such as domain,hosting,theme,theme customization and seo. It will give rapid and better result.
If you are unable to buy a theme in starting you should customize default wordoress theme because it is safe and light.
Not only pirated themes but also the free themes can be injurious. Full source code of free themes should be properly analyzed before making it to use, as it may contain harmful encrypted codes.
But how can we identify these threats?? Is there any online tool to check the themes…
Yes, you can use Theme Authenticity Checker Plugin (TAC), its one of the best plugin to check wordpress theme files, scand for any malicious codes and links. Additionally, you can give a look to Exploit Scanner Plugin. Actually, scanning from a single source does not confirm the theme is safe, you need to do multiple scans.
I prefer TAC above all, as it does most of the work. You can search on wordpress plugins repository to get that. Thanks.
yeah Pirated theme may harm a lot directly or indirectly!
great to see this post making well aware of other webmasters of the hidden dangers lurking 🙂
thanks Shariq:!
Your welcome dear.
I don’t know that how hacker do this but I read somewhere , if you use hacked/nulled themes than hackers can also get hidden access to your hosting accounts and most of them end up with using your hosting free of cost for bad works .
You said perfect thing with a perfection. Using a free premium theme may destroy your blog. Few days back I came across a site which allows to download thesis 1.7 theme. I was amazed to see 87$ theme being distributed free of cost. Than later I realized the disfunction and disadvantages of using such free premium theme.
Thanks for spreading this news. Many new blogger following SML can learn from this.
Thanks for your feedback.
Seriuos blogging needs everything serious. Using a pirate theme is a fun for blogging business.
And even some one can steal your adsense earning. They will place there Pub ID and you will not notice that whether the ads are mine or not. Now adays people are also downloading pirated Thesis Themes, and it will of course negatively effect there blog.
Great article.
I never thought I could be dangerous..
Yes, I was wondering what would be “the price” of using nulled themes and scripts 😛
Some warez sites are also distributing SEO and social share plugins… if they hack the scripts, they can catch our facebook, twitter passwords and other info.
Currently I’m using a customized version of a free theme on my blog.
Very Interesting Post. I see many people ignore these and use pirated wordpress themes.
Thanks for sharing this great Post shariq.
warm welcome.
Wonderful article. Still, I see some people are using pirated version of premium themes. This post will teach them to move on.
yea i agree with sathish,much of the guys are using pirated themes,spending on blogging is much less than starting a smaller business,so why can’t guys go for premium themes.If your really wanna be a professional blogger then go for buying everything related to blogs just like this blog.
Lol I always prefer my own coded themes instead of download nulled premium thems from warez . Atleast I am happy that I am the only owner of my broken coded them . I can improve it myself after learning new tips from reading tutorials .
Best wishes…
I used one thesis theme hacked version in the past but had no problem with it much, I had adsense running well on it, now i am using swift theme which is free theme but my site is somewhat hacked, i mean though some trackers show bounce rate 20% – 30% google shows it as high as 70%
Why Using Hacked themes, Premiums themes can get cheaply. Theme -Junkie Themes are so cheap.
I like Junkie Themes too, very cheap and beautiful. 🙂
Hacking doesn’t make any sense when you have so many free templates available for use. Nicely written though!
Nice post,I’m also planing to buy premium theme.
It’s also very unethical to use an hacked premium themes… Thanks for the post Shariq..
Your welcome Reshab.