Update: This theme is going to be the new theme on College Startup for at least 12 months. So the winning bidder not only gets a 12 month link on Performancing Themes but also on an established, authoritative blog like College Startup. Quite a perk in my opinion.
Since launching in June, we’ve had winning sponsorship bids on three great WordPress themes. Sponsorships are a win-win situation. They help Performancing continue to commission high quality themes and they help the sponsor get recognition for her production-level work in making the theme possible.
We’re excited to announce the September 2007 theme that’s now open for for sponsorship bids. Designed by Thord Hedengren, Estranged is a two-column theme that features large, standout headers, and easy-to read body and link text. The color scheme involves subtle shades of grey and red, with a bit of orange, and these add to that simple yet eye-catching look. The proportions of the columns and the headers are just right, making ample use of the rule of thirds popular among those in the visual arts. Contrast is just right–having adequate readability, but not at the cost of being too much of a glare. The theme also makes adequate use of white space, so the blog doesn’t look cramped.
Estranged is suitable for both personal and professional bloggers who prefer a clean looking theme with enough space for the essentials. The right sidebar is wide enough to accommodate square ad space (text links or images) up to 250 pixels in width. This is great for bloggers who would rather not stuff in too much information, but would rather present essential information in blocks. This is due to the fact that there is only one sidebar, and that the footer does not support lists or longer content than the copyright statement.
Estranged is set for release as this September’s Performancing theme for WordPress.
Bids can start in the comment section.
6 thoughts on “September 2007 Theme Sponsorship Now Open For Bids”
Any more sponsored themes planned?
Any opportunity to sponsor an existing theme that’s currently unsponsored? 🙂
If your sponsored theme is packed with two dozen hidden links and a dozen links to completely unrelated and SPAMMY sites, then you are trouble, yes.
If your sponsored theme links to the 3 sites in the footer, all of which are involved in the development of the theme, then you’re not going to suffer.
As always, it pays to dig deeper into the ‘why’ of a sweeping statement like “don’t use sponsored themes because you can lose your trust in different search engines”. Ask how. Ask why.
Hands down, you’ll get the answer that I gave above.
Free themes often link out to WordPress.org, to accessibility standards sites and to the designer’s own site. Now why wouldn’t those themes be penalised? Because those themes are not using bad SEO techniques like hidden links or stuffing dozens of unrelated links to spammy sites in the footer.
There is no difference in the linking-out policies of free themes and sponsored themes from trusted sources.
Hope that clears things up.
Listen to Matt Cutts at your own discretion. He often uses fear and innuendo to scare the majority of his readers into not doing things…
Hi guys,
I am a bit concerned, as i use a lot of sponsored themes, but Matt Cutts, in his whitehat-SEO-tips-for-bloggers.ppt, in slide 25 mentions:
“Dont use sponsored theme- can lose all your trust in different search engines”
I hope there is an error here somewhere…..
Good choice here; this one is a winner…
I’ll open the bidding at $500 since I love this theme and plan to use it on about 5 of my new blogs in the next six months.
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