Sponsored themes can lose your Wordpress site's trust

[Whitey]

I just came across this on Matt's blog on his ppt presentaion and wondered what the implications of it were :

Don't use sponsored theme - can lose all your trust in different search engines

[mattcutts.com...]

[wanderingmind]

In the real world, many things are sponsored. I don't sit around and scrub off some logo off a cap i got somewhere, or the sponsor's name from a pen in a press kit. TV programs are sponsored, where I live, even school bags are sponsored sometimes.

Normal people are blind to sponsors when they get something for 'free'.

MC is not blind to sponsors, and neither am I now, and I won't get into trouble for using sponsored themes. The little old man blogging from his veranda would.

But I resent having to change the way I work, watching for new things announced by MC which can get me penalised. (Loss of trust is penalisation.)

[kidder]

Following the "theme" of this discussion can you imagine placing such restrictions on Google passing it's brand - like on their adsense for example? Could Google not just "account" for footer links in the wordpress platform with their maths if they have not already? I've used themes in the past and I don't like what they do to a sites link profile, themes get changed all the time, links go up and down and I don't think it helps or looks natural.

[Miamacs]

... of course you should know that there's no such thing as a penalty for a sponsored theme. There's this devaluation penalty for any site with an irregular linking profile.

If the blog has 297 inbounds ( even if all are from other blogs ) 36 outbounds to other sites ( even if all are but blogs ), that 1 sponsored link to an off topic site won't hurt anyone.

...

I can understand the point of having sponsored stuff.

But there're some morals as to what to sponsor where.
Those themes I saw ( and which I would identify as "sponsored", as in built for the link and not vica versa ) weren't too moral. They weren't just off topic, they were targeting stuff you'd have a hard time collecting links to.

If a theme about gardening linked to not only the designer, but also a retail shop for gardening tools, I wouldn't mind. Neither would the Google algo in my opinion, except if that link is sitewide, and the site doesn't have any PR to pass on. ( will keep it in the dark for a few months )

But when the same gardening theme links to insurance brokers, pharmacy sites, real estate and the like, well... I kinda frowned at WP for allowing it to be posted on their official site.

...

The generic message here is that in Google's eyes "SEO", "sponsored", "bought", etc. might default to "schemes", "fraud", "cheating"... which isn't always the case. There are infinite shades of gray in between "sponsored", "made to get links" and "cheating".

But there's no specific penalty for this, so this was probably a generic warning about existing link profile checks. That brand new, otherwise almost unknown sites with such questionable sitewide direct links to competitive, borderline stuff might see themselves kept from passing link juice. ( even to their own pages ) For that falls within the Google profile of SPAM.

...

ps.: I don't watch TV. But I remember that when I did, aside of being influenced to use brand stuff ( of course I was ), a wrongfully placed or tasteless advertisement actually kept me from buying certain brands ever again...