Warning Check your themes
What do you know about the WordPress theme you’re using? Did it come from a reputable theme designer? If you’re not sure you should check it for hidden links.
Some theme designers give away themes just to increase the backlinks to their own site or what they call theme sponsors. These links that I’m rambling about are links that you will not see. They can be hidden by the style sheet or hidden in a file you may never look at like the comment template.
The only way to be sure you’re not using a theme with hidden backlinks is to take a little time and look for them in the source code.
Why does it matter?
There are 2 important reasons why this should matter to you. First, every link that you have on your site is analyzed by Google and other search engines to help determine your sites rank. The more links you have that are irrelevant to your sites content the lower your site will rank. The lower your rank, the less often your site will show in the results.
The second reason, heck this deserves its own heading
WARNING your site is in danger
WordPress themes are not just made with html, css, and JavaScripts. They are built using PHP. With PHP a theme designer can place code in their theme that can send them your password, delete your database, share your….
Well you get the point. It’s very important that you use caution when picking a new theme. Make sure you look at the source code. Check for backlinks, and code that looks strange. If you don’t trust the theme designer, and you do not feel confident proofing the code; don’t use the theme!
One last note; the same should be said for WordPress plugins as well!
Maybe you could show people how to look through the source codes and what to look for as not everyone can do that and recognize PHP encoding.
We speak in jargons that only we can understand
Nowadays, you should definitely be more cautious about downloading WordPress themes as there are many maliciously modified versions out there. It’s simply best to download from the original source. Most of the times, that should be from the theme author’s own website.
Thanks Small for the suggestion, I am thinking of doing just that next week… My only fear is that someone evil might use what I teach in well an evil way.