Adsense Ready WordPress Themes vs. Thesis

Greybeard · Nov 13, 2011

I'm trying to decide between purchasing one of those premium AdSense themes or Thesis.

Both are pretty slick! With the Adsense themes, they're ready to go, I just have to add my site information. With Thesis, I can create my own themes similar to premium AdSense themes, but i can customize it to my liking. I can also use thesis to create other sites and blogs.

The two premium AdSense ready themes I'm looking at are $80ish, the full developer Thesis plug-in is $164

.

Please chime in guys and tell me your thoughts.

jazzc · Nov 13, 2011

I always factor flexibility very highly. Thesis is quite flexible, and if you can code a bit, it is very flexible.

LBrown · Nov 13, 2011

I use Atahualpa for a lot of my sites which is like the free version of thesis. You can customize it however you want. I haven't found any limitations in what I can do with it and it has an easy interface. If price is a factor you might want to look at atahualpa. I started using it before I had money for themes and have never had to buy a theme because I recreate everything I want with it.

Greybeard · Nov 14, 2011

Jazz, yes, flexibility is much more beneficial, which is something I have to think about in regards to the price, in a more bang for my buck kind of way.

Hmm, I've never heard of Atahualpa. I can't help but wonder what's the catch if it has the same quality as Thesis. Kind of like Traffic Travis in comparison to Market Samurai, TT is missing some functionality because it's a free product.

Fwiffo · Nov 14, 2011

atahulapa is a great theme - I use thesis at times, however once you get "under the hood" atahulapa does pretty much the same thing. I find thesis takes care of a bit more of the "design" work, atahulapa is a bit more technical to figure out, however still have a great support community. Comes down to what you're used to / what you prefer.

personally I'm not a big fan of custom made adsense themes / heatmaps. I personally think that google has a search engine hate on for them with some of panda updates.

Greybeard · Nov 14, 2011

Fwiffo said:
atahulapa is a great theme - I use thesis at times, however once you get "under the hood" atahulapa does pretty much the same thing. I find thesis takes care of a bit more of the "design" work, atahulapa is a bit more technical to figure out, however still have a great support community. Comes down to what you're used to / what you prefer.

personally I'm not a big fan of custom made adsense themes / heatmaps. I personally think that google has a search engine hate on for them with some of panda updates.

Now this is interesting. I wonder how Google can tell which sites are using heatmap or made for AdSense themes. That is all the more reason to go with a flexible theme like Thesis.

Aullus · Nov 14, 2011

Thesis is definitely worth it, in my opinion. There is a great community behind it and the official forum is very helpful. They will usually answer any questions very fast and will help out a lot with design questions (ie. write you some code).

Another thing, since it is so popular it won't be dying off anytime soon. Which means the support and updates will continue.

cocaco · Nov 14, 2011

i would go with Thesis, i use it with a lot of pages and i really like it. it is easy to edit and you can change it for your needs.

Fwiffo · Nov 14, 2011

Now this is interesting. I wonder how Google can tell which sites are using heatmap or made for AdSense themes. That is all the more reason to go with a flexible theme like Thesis.

keep in mind that is just my personal opinion from personal observation. No data or inside information to share that would validate that.

the recent panda updates are generally considered to be about having people review what results they think are good or bad, and then applying those "opinions" to the algo as a whole. Where ads are located (ie too many ads right when you show up) has been listed as one of the major things they're trying to crack down on / move results away from.

While I don't know that they are looking at themes for sure, it's relatively easy to tell your theme by just looking at your page source - look at the page source of any wordpress install, and you can see what directory the theme is loaded from (look for the /wp-content/themes/ directory)(yes, you can change theme directory names, however that has the potential to mess a number of things up with your site if you don't know what you're doing). Would be a relatively simple filter to do on their end IMHO.

I think there's a copy of thesis floating around in the downloads section by the way....

Greybeard · Nov 15, 2011

Fwiffo said:
keep in mind that is just my personal opinion from personal observation. No data or inside information to share that would validate that.

the recent panda updates are generally considered to be about having people review what results they think are good or bad, and then applying those "opinions" to the algo as a whole. Where ads are located (ie too many ads right when you show up) has been listed as one of the major things they're trying to crack down on / move results away from.

While I don't know that they are looking at themes for sure, it's relatively easy to tell your theme by just looking at your page source - look at the page source of any wordpress install, and you can see what directory the theme is loaded from (look for the /wp-content/themes/ directory)(yes, you can change theme directory names, however that has the potential to mess a number of things up with your site if you don't know what you're doing). Would be a relatively simple filter to do on their end IMHO.

I think there's a copy of thesis floating around in the downloads section by the way....

Yes, I know you can find out a theme from the page source, but I didn't think Google would factor that in.

I would feel kind of weird picking up the download. What would happen when it's time to update if I had a "free" download. Also, would I still have access to the forums?

jazzc · Nov 15, 2011

Greybeard said:
I would feel kind of weird picking up the download. What would happen when it's time to update if I had a "free" download. Also, would I still have access to the forums?

The reason the downloads exists are to help people minimize their start up costs. You could pick up the free download, set up your site and once you start to see some $$ coming in (i.e. your venture proves that it 's not a flop), you buy the theme to get access to support, updates etc.

Black&Red · Nov 15, 2011

In my opinion the simplier the site the better (for affiliate sites ofc.). Sure there is a border of too simple but oversaturated themes can turn visitors away. Another great factor as few members posted before is flexibility, because it allows you to customize the theme for Your needs and many premium themes don't provide you with this.

Greybeard · Nov 16, 2011

jazzc said:
The reason the downloads exists are to help people minimize their start up costs. You could pick up the free download, set up your site and once you start to see some $$ coming in (i.e. your venture proves that it 's not a flop), you buy the theme to get access to support, updates etc.

Haha, that's a great way to look at it, didn't think of it that way.

I'll search around the downloads area to see if it's there. Thanks to everyone who gave me the heads up!

Adsense Ready WordPress Themes vs. Thesis

Greybeard

Junior Member

jazzc

Elite Member

LBrown

Senior Member

Greybeard

Junior Member

Fwiffo

Power Member

Greybeard

Junior Member

Aullus

Newbie

cocaco

Regular Member

Fwiffo

Power Member

Greybeard

Junior Member

jazzc

Elite Member

Black&Red

Regular Member

Greybeard

Junior Member

Main Menu

Marketplace

Making Money

BlackHat World