The Ruckus
Matt Mullenweg hit a nerve bigtime when he posted his opinion on the subject of sponsored WordPress themes. I guess I missed the memo, since the post is a couple months old by now. But as I have been getting back into the WordPress theme “business” (I use that word “truthily,” props to Stephen Colbert), I was a bit taken aback to see so many themes marked as sponsored. Matt’s thinking on this, if I understood him right, is:
- Sponsored themes, in general, aren’t good
- Hidden links and other unethical tricks are really bad
And then the debate rages, with over 100 comments! There are a lot of issues orbiting around this. I’ve been blogging since 1999 (although not at this URL) and seen every trend in advertising and technology come and sometimes go. And I have to say, I’m really surprised at Google’s harsh stance on paid text links. What does that have to do with sponsored WordPress themes? Everything. Google’s position against paid text links only benefits Google. They feel that paid text advertising undermines the authenticity of the relationship between two linking sites. In other words, they see it as an attempt to game PageRank.
PageRank isn’t Everything
I know Google’s big, but they’re not yet the center of the universe. Advertising has a purpose outside of Google PageRank or AdSense: people are running businesses, and businesses advertise to get customers, and this would be happening even if Google didn’t exist. I get the feeling that Google will interpret the backlinks on sponsored WordPress themes as the kind of thing you can snitch on to them. Traffic means potential customers, and traffic does not mean you will achieve a high PageRank. If I was making money from paying customers, would I care about PageRank?
Google’s Flawed Position on Paid Text Links
Here’s how we really know that Google’s position on this is flawed and hypocritical: what do you think their stance would be if they bought the Text Link Ads company? There is a problem with paid text links: a lack of disclosure. I know that would be one thing that Google, to their credit, would do differently if it were their program. They would require disclosure so that site visitors wouldn’t mistake the paid text links for “organic” links. Nevermind the fact that the reason why visitors click on the horizontal AdSense link units is because they mistake them for site navigation!
Backlinks are Backlinks: it’s Disclosure that Matters
Now, back to the subject of sponsored WordPress themes. My opinion on this is that it’s hardly any different than the backlinks that are on my own free WordPress themes, as credit for the theme designer. If a company wants to sponsor a theme, and the theme author accepts that sponsorship, and a blogger understands the theme is sponsored prior to using it, then all is well. The key component in this is that the blogger knows the theme is sponsored.
The credit backlinks on the themes I design accomplish the exact same thing as paid advertising links do, as far as Google is concerned. I have a PageRank of 6 simply because of the hundreds (perhaps thousands) of little links at the bottom of my themes that point back to this blog. At one point, I was even in the Technorati 100. I’m advertising myself. And there is nothing wrong with it whatsoever. These people aren’t linking to me because they like me, or because their content is related to mine. They could remove the link if they want, but if they did, and I lost my traffic, then maybe I wouldn’t feel like making free WordPress themes, anymore. So, it doesn’t matter whether these links are paid for or not. I know I don’t “deserve” a PageRank of 6, but it’s the traffic that matters to me. That link back to me is the “price” they pay for a free WordPress theme.
Relevancy is the Real Problem
Google’s core idea of ad relevancy has been very important to the success of AdWords and AdSense. If the ad is highly relevant to the site visitor, then we have a situation that represents the ideal. Advertiser and customer hook up, and a purchase is made, and everybody’s happy. Paid text link ads should be relevant, too, otherwise who would click on them? This is part of the real problem, as I see it, with sponsored WordPress themes. The themes are too generically designed for any kind of relevancy in the sponsor link. Google can ask people to report paid text links in order to try to keep an accurate PageRank, but PageRank is already inaccurate and flawed. Sponsors of WordPress themes may indeed increase their PageRank, but if it doesn’t result in more paying customers, they will quickly cease to sponsor WordPress themes.
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