How Hacked WordPress Themes Harms your Blog?

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.

Hacked WordPress Themes
  • Save

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?

Was this helpful?

Thanks for your feedback!
Authored By
Editorial Staff at ShoutMeLoud is a team of writers led by Harsh Agrawal.

56 thoughts on “How Hacked WordPress Themes Harms your Blog?”

  1. Rajiv Choudharu

    Hey,
    This is a very useful information and every newbie should not use null theme.
    Once i had also made this mistake and installed an Nulled theme due to which i was facing downtime and lag.

  2. rejakul alam

    Very good post sir.Must read for every new bloggers. From now i will not use any free themes or plugin in my blog. I don’t want loose my blog.Once again thanks for posting such a useful post.

  3. Rocky

    Well said. Tell you what, i was once a victim of nulled wp plugin. After some time my website was infected with malware that redirects users to other site. It happened randomly (means some users get redirected and some dont). I didnt even realise this was happening until one time i accessed my website from my friend’s computer.

    Since then i always buy premium plugins.

  4. Erick

    For what I have experience, you are paying 100 dollars not so much for the theme but for the support. If you are new to coding and HTML, php etc and you want to modify your website, the people that sell the theme will help you till you are satisfy, they will even go into your website and do the changes themselves. Now that’s well worth your money

  5. Nishant Thakur

    Shame on those people, Who are using a premium theme without paying for its licence?
    I think they don’t know what it takes to develop a theme?

    It takes 3-4 months of development and handwork. A theme author puts all his efforts and creativity to develop a theme for your needs and business.

    If you don’t have money, just don’t use premium themes. There are many free options out there. Stop doing piracy!

    Thank you Shariq for posting this useful information and hope this helps to everyone out there.

  6. Gaurav Prakash

    What if we download the theme from the Theme companys website by paying for it.Then take a refund from the theme company and continue using the theme. In this case would the theme company come to know ?

    1. Holmes

      Those of you who are using nulled/hacked themes or anything stolen are crooks!
      You know about it and you are happy to do so.
      That’s the bottom line. You are stealing.

      Let me come over to your place and use your ass without your approval and we’ll see how much you like being robbed … bah ha

      1. Bright Joe

        Hi Holmes,

        The thing you said is absolutely right. But in my personal view, I don’t think we should be using slangs on comments. But I strongly support your opinion about stealing themes, and that’s not right either. Theme authors are working hard to develop these themes with their effort and skills.

        It’s a request, don’t use pirated or nulled themes. If you’re deceiving the creator of something you’re using and taking away his sales, you can’t continue long with it. You’ll see at the end of the day, who is the looser? That’s you if you’re stealing premium themes.

        Regards,
        Bright Joe

    2. Harsh Agrawal

      @Gaurav
      In most of the cases they wouldn’t know..but why do you wanna go this cheap way by not paying for something you like and using it.. Be responsible and be honest..!

  7. himanshu

    But if you are a new bie buying premium theme would cost you a lot and he or she would prefer to buy free themes instead of premium ones.

  8. antodoms

    Hi shariq…………

    thanks for this wonderful post… I am using a nulled theme myself for my website…. and my site got hacked once , its was not becoz of my theme , it was becoz i was using some buggy plugins like register plus , whc allowed the hacker to sql inject my blog….. I just have 1 opinion about it…. Be more carefull while choosing Plugins for your site….

    And I dunt think if you use nulled theme can cause you much problems unless you download the theme from a non trusted source….. There are chances that the nulled copy you get contains virus or other malware but if you download the right nulled copy then there’s nothing that you must be scared of…..

    1. Sir antodoms, can you please suggest trusted sources for nulled wordpress premium themes?

    2. SikNik

      Yeah bro, I ONLY use Nulled themes and plugins… The truth is that i cannot afford them, BUT, i have a moral policy, that if I EVER make money from using the theme/plugin I WILL go out and pay for ever last drop of code that each and every plugin and theme developer made for my one specific site that has made me money.

      If developers were smart and not so selfishly stingy, they could just say, here guys, here is my hard work for you to use for FREE, BUT if you make some money from using it, please please share some dollar with me, and perhaps even go so far as to ask, yes, simply ask, out of courtesy, that the theme/plugin freebie user puts a reference to that developer somewhere on their website so that the public can come to know of that developer and perhaps nurture an interest in using it and perhaps even buying it later if they come to make money from it…

      Im pretty sure that if we could adopt a sharing mentality in a world where NULL’ing is sometimes easier then paying for something, while setting an expectation to pay for that code/plugin/theme if you make money from it, everyone would be a whole lot better off….

      Poor website makers will get good sites up and running, safely, be more successful at using them and have more chance of making money from using them, in which case the developer has a MEANS to get paid from someone who would otherwise simply get a nulled copy purely because they cant afford it – like me.

      Even when I make websites for customers, I use NULLED themes and plugins, but the moment the customer likes what they see and are ready to purchase a site i make for them, my quotation/invoice will have the full theme/plugin price included with the Expectation, that they will be purchasing these theme/plugins from the developer via myself, on thier behalf… Kind of like a sales rep I see myself as 🙂

      The reality is that if i never had access to the NULLED resources, i would never be able to meet the customers needs and therefore never be able to make the sale and then never Be Able to pay the developer ANYWAY…

      So get a grip , NULL the HELL out of ANYTHING and EVERYTHING!!!

      BUT, pay the makers if you make money from it…. Simple and fair as that!

      Peace guys!!

      And to all the Devs out there, THANKS for all the hard work, I commit to try to get you sales, by using your stuff for free, at least till I make some money for you and me, from using it!!

      Keep it coming

      Over-and-out!!

      SikNik

  9. Blacklisted

    You can removed all the links that are pointed to other sites. and it wont affect anything from your blog as long as you didnt touch any codes and just remove the link only..

    Its safe to use the nulled themes, if the source is reliable. and I dont think nulled themes are violating the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) because nulled themes are free, It only violates if someone is selling nulled themes.

    and also, what makes a hacker become interested with your newly blog or site?

    I used to nulled premium themes and plug.ins and giving it to the public just to make my name popular and nulling premium themes are also very challenging.. lol… and if i put some codes to access someone’s website do you think I have time dealing with those newly sites that used my nulled themes? I just waste my time if I will access those wordpress websites.. Unless if your site is selling some programs or selling anything.. then I would be interested 🙂 and those themes that has tracking script where the webmasters can hack your site can be easily determine.. Suck those company who sales premium themes, The price of the their themes are too much only the Elegant is a little cheaper. They become millionaires for just a changed of looks of your site? FAIR?

    1. Chook

      “FAIR?” Yes, it’s fair they became millionaires by selling Cheap good themes. But they do a lot more than just sell themes ($39 for All their themes is Very Cheap)

      What’s wrong with becoming a millionaire? If your website became famous and you were making lots of money would that be fair? Apparently Not in your argument.

      The point of this article is to Warn people of the risks if they use hacked themes. People will do whatever they like, smoke cigarets, drive to fast, and steal themes.

      With the amount of Free themes available from within wp it’s perfect for the upcoming millionaire to Start.

      Cheers

  10. Rajinder Singh

    well i m planning to change from blogger to wp just becz of wp themes and seo but now i listen that i have to pay for theme also as my budget is so low can you please tell me other free prem themes..?

  11. Propoganda, interesting none the less

    but after reading this, i’ll stick with my free theme for now

  12. tips for technology

    I have seen many good blog using pirated or hacked themes. Most of them use Thesis themes(developer edition). I have used a premium theme (that belongs to a small company: removed all codes and changed the design). There are many free options that are very good (Swift and Isotherm) but they have a very linear approach which stops development on this themes.

  13. Deepanshu

    hello i m using pirated version and used TAC to find out if its incrypted or not and it stated theme is OK but it displayed 1 static link which is the link of the site from where i have downloaded the premium theme (maybe he is using it for backlinking). Its is located in footer.php, if I delete it then will things be ok ? please tell me as i m only 16 and can’t spend money on buying a premium themes and free ones are not pleasing 🙁 🙁 🙁 .

    1. shariq@shoutmeloud

      Dear Friend.
      As you said that you are unable to spend money for buying a theme then you do not need to be disappointed.
      I am suggesting you a free premium WordPress theme which is awesome in design and functionality.
      Use Arras free theme and you will be surprised.
      http://www.arrastheme.com/
      Pirated theme may harm your blogging persent and future both.

  14. PoorGuy

    I have a serious question about this:
    “Theme company may take legal action against you.”

    Really? How?! How can they proove that I did not buy the theme from their site? I can buy a lot of premium themes with anonymous paypal. I don’t sign a thing for them! So can they be sure of me if I simply download there premium theme from elsewhere?

    Second: 70$ – 120$ / theme? VERY expensive!! With 120$ I can buy 12 .com domains with 10$ each. So I can open 12 websites with the price of a single WP theme. Or I can buy myself any personalized template with 50$.

    120$ is not just a “few bucks”.

    Thank you for reading my lines. Sorry for my bad English.

  15. devirithiha

    Nice to give such info. for us.

    Thanks for Guide.

  16. Raj

    This is really shocking !! But there are people out there are still using the hacked themes. From my personal experience I saw most of the times these themes are not nulled properly. Its easy to understand why should some one give you a paid theme for free unless he have something in his mind.

    Thanks for post. Good job 🙂

  17. gazzan

    yeh….
    its true.i have installed one of free themas.after two days Google search show harmful warning.
    any thanks to post

  18. Nihar

    I remember i downloaded one premium theme from a blogger/

    But never thought of this. Need to be careful and make sure that we purchase the premium theme from the official website.

Leave a Comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Scroll to Top