How NOT To Get a Backlink From Me: Crafty Wordpress Theme Designers
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Introduction
Whenever someone downloads a free template or a wordpress theme, there is a certain understanding that yeah, there will probably be a backlink or two to the creator in the footer. I’m fine with this.
There are only 3 situations where I will remove these footer links.
1) If It is going to be a popular blog[hopefully], and will get a lot of extra link spam as a result of the backlink/keywords
2) If It is going to be a template for a blackhat site, and I think there’s question that you would WANT a backlink from it. Especially if it will be highly used.
3) If you try and plant really really un-related keywords(linked, of course) in the footer. I get penalized enough on my own , without your help thanks.
The Story
Today I was downloading a theme for a new project I’m working on(grayhat), and I was looking around the template, making my changes. I wanted to include some of my own stuff in the footer, and wanted to remove a single backlink that they had out of 3. Two of the footer links were fine in my eyes. The place I downloaded it from, and the designer. But the third one, a link for a web hosting company, I thought had no place on the site I was making. It was going to be hard enough to rank without having nasty spammy links at the bottom, and leaking link juice to a site I’d never heard of.
Upon opening the footer file, what I saw really, really pissed me off.
| <? eval(gzinflate(base64_decode(’ bZC9bsMwDITnFOg7XD21g+PdVWSgS7t1CZCxkCLa EixLqqTECNCHrxX3ZwkXHu7IDyA7zh7qGpIG49B7 nymirvn93WbDGmXOq+qCDhgofySjSIr4+PSMrkR/ M0UvEkbtqhVTFRtggUNRMoMjBXlpwQR0pH5X6ZxD 2zTzPG8nMdLnyRzH7dFPFX931jjCgWQymfByMlZR ZI3gEE7dRswktU/ZuGEgGtMKWgh4W12U9dcS4Qvi LIwV0hL6SASRW+x9uIXNPswha5roB4mDjypESgn7 q124rAnLtVjq9yH/XXp1uQqdJ8tZ9w0= ‘))); ?> |
That was the footer code. They were effectively attempting to FORCE their backlink. Now look.
The entire template deal is based on good-faith agreements between developers and webmasters; an agreement I abide by whenever possible. Now, realize that this is taking a risk. Static anchor text, footer links,etc….welcome to something Google regards as “link scheme”…but I am willing to risk getting my outgoing link juice dropped. Except when they force me to. This is my damn option.
I really do understand, my longterm readers know that from time to time I design a script or two, and I say there must be a backlink somewhere on it if it comes into public use. And I get angry if someone removes it. However, there is one backlink on mine, and it is not a spammy looking footer link that blends into the footer color(something Google frowns upon), and I do not try and promote every damn site I run.
Obviously, I have a bit of a temper. So i tried to remove their encoded text. And, naturally it broke the effin template when I tried to remove it.
So let’s take a look at what happens when we decode what they do here.
><!– begin footer –> </div><?php get_sidebar(); ?> </div> <div id=“footer”> <p> designed by: <a href=“http://www.makequick.com”>Online Website Builder</a> and: <a href=“http://www.webhostinggeeks.com”>Web Hosting </a>Geeks | available free at: Top <a href=“http://www.topwpthemes.com”> Wordpress Themes</a></p> </div></div></body> </html><? |
So by calling the get_sidebar() function within the encoded data, they make the template completely useless if you remove the footer data.
Well guess what guys? I put the footer back on. And I just might re-delegate the template to blackhat sites. Your wish, is my command. Let’s see how you fare after dozens of sites it’s on get banned. (Ok, ok, I probably won’t do this, but damn I want to)
I know most people do not get as worked up as I do over things like this. I thought it was a decent story, and a decent look into this kind of thing. If you want to use it on your own, feel free. If you want to decode it to remove the crap from something you yourself download, feel equally free.
I’m an amiable guy most of the time, but not when I’m forced into it. I’ll get my damn template from somewhere else.
I’ll try and spit out another entry tonight, I just have to do some checking and see if everyone already covered this past the point of saturation.
-XMCP
PS: Web Hosting Geeks
PPS: I forgot to tell you guys how to DECODE this stuff(thanks SEO Blackout). So here’s the code.
<?
echo gzinflate(base64_decode(’
bZC9bsMwDITnFOg7XD21g+PdVWSgS7t1CZCxkCLa
EixLqqTECNCHrxX3ZwkXHu7IDyA7zh7qGpIG49B7
nymirvn93WbDGmXOq+qCDhgofySjSIr4+PSMrkR/
M0UvEkbtqhVTFRtggUNRMoMjBXlpwQR0pH5X6ZxD
2zTzPG8nMdLnyRzH7dFPFX931jjCgWQymfByMlZR
ZI3gEE7dRswktU/ZuGEgGtMKWgh4W12U9dcS4Qvi
LIwV0hL6SASRW+x9uIXNPswha5roB4mDjypESgn7
q124rAnLtVjq9yH/XXp1uQqdJ8tZ9w0=
‘));
?>
Output that seperately, and copy/paste the output into the footer of the wordpress, replacing their version. You should get the raw HTML.
January 11th, 2008 at 7:07 pm
Good catch mate.. I sometimes nofollow the link in footers if I don’t like what they’re doing, if not remove them all together.
You should republish the template without the links
January 11th, 2008 at 7:22 pm
yeah that shit pisses me off
January 11th, 2008 at 9:12 pm
“And I just might re-delegate the template to blackhat sites.”
Unless I’m missing something, that link will not help (or hurt) them because the link won’t ever get crawled. As far as I know, G doesn’t execute JS and if they did even in a minor capacity, I wouldn’t guess that they are going as far as decoding JavaScript AND crawling the links in it. I could be wrong. Either way, interesting post!
January 11th, 2008 at 9:13 pm
Oh, and ditto to what nickycakes said.
January 11th, 2008 at 9:33 pm
@Adam: That’s PHP code, so they can see it.
January 12th, 2008 at 12:30 am
Hi XMCP,
Thanks for all your great posts
You forgot one thing in this post: Explain how to decode this kind of code
January 12th, 2008 at 12:31 am
Oups the code disapeared…
I try again :
echo gzinflate(base64_decode('
bZC9bsMwDITnFOg7XD21g+PdVWSgS7t1CZCxkCLa
EixLqqTECNCHrxX3ZwkXHu7IDyA7zh7qGpIG49B7
nymirvn93WbDGmXOq+qCDhgofySjSIr4+PSMrkR/
M0UvEkbtqhVTFRtggUNRMoMjBXlpwQR0pH5X6ZxD
2zTzPG8nMdLnyRzH7dFPFX931jjCgWQymfByMlZR
ZI3gEE7dRswktU/ZuGEgGtMKWgh4W12U9dcS4Qvi
LIwV0hL6SASRW+x9uIXNPswha5roB4mDjypESgn7
q124rAnLtVjq9yH/XXp1uQqdJ8tZ9w0=
'));
January 12th, 2008 at 2:44 am
Ha! whoops. Thanks for clarifying!
January 12th, 2008 at 4:57 pm
Lol, your a blackhat who gets pissed when someone does something small that annoys you. I love the irony.
On the other hand, I can appreciate the other side of the story. I purchased a template to get backlinks and only put one link in the footer a while ago, plain html. The template has had over 7,000 downloads. Wanna guess how many backlinks I got? Zero, zilch, nada. That pisses you off too. It makes you want to encode the links in the most difficult way possible.
January 12th, 2008 at 5:50 pm
haha I appreciate the irony as well. Just because I’m a hypocrite, doesn’t mean I’m not right.
And I can deal with the encoding, so long as it’s not random ass businesses that are doing it. The designer? Aight. Even where I downloaded it from.
And btw, another thing to remember is that not all templates that are downloaded are even uploaded, nonetheless used. I have 12 right now on this server
January 13th, 2008 at 6:56 am
Admin, I dont see what tool you use to decode,can you explain more ?
January 13th, 2008 at 7:23 am
Oh ,I found that ,thanks ,admin
January 13th, 2008 at 3:50 pm
Nice posting… I’m currently competing against someone in my region that does the same… curse their 90,000 backlinks!
January 14th, 2008 at 9:43 am
sooo why didnt you just replace the eval(gzinflate(base64_decode())) call with the decoded value (minus the unwanted footer links)?
January 16th, 2008 at 7:58 am
Yeah why not just put the decrypted code into the footer?
ps. all that happens when I use your PHP code is that the footer moves out of the template to the bottom of the page.. any ideas?
January 16th, 2008 at 9:47 am
@Jon: That’s what you do. You output the decoded vesion->replace the footer.php file with it, and strip out what you want.
January 21st, 2008 at 12:59 am
Those bastards also are giving out fantastic reviews to 1and1 … hate those stupid POS … linked.
February 27th, 2008 at 10:33 am
Can someone explain to a coding noob how to decode that?
March 5th, 2008 at 10:42 am
cant post the php code?
last try:
?php $__F=__FILE__;$__C='Pz48L2Q0dj4NCiAgICAgIDxkNHYgNGQ9ImYyMnQ1ciI+PGJyLz48YnIvPkQ1czRnbjVkIGJ5IDwxDQpocjVmPSJodHRwOi8vdzViaDJzdDRuZ2c1NWtzLmMybSI+VzViIEgyc3Q0bmcgRzU1a3M8LzE+IDFuZCA8MQ0KaHI1Zj0iaHR0cDovL3QycHdwdGg1bTVzLmMybSI+VDJwIFcycmRQcjVzcyBUaDVtNXM8LzE+LjwvZDR2Pg0KICAgICAgDQogICA8L2Q0dj4NCiAgIA0KPGQ0diA0ZD0iY3I1ZDR0Ij4gDQogDQoNCjwvZDR2Pg0KDQo8L2IyZHk+DQo8L2h0bWw+';eval(base64_decode('JF9fQz1iYXNlNjRfZGVjb2RlKCRfX0MpOwokX19DPXN0cnRyKCRfX0MsIjEyMzQ1NmFvdWllIiwiYW91aWUxMjM0NTYiKTsKJF9fQz1lcmVnX3JlcGxhY2UoJ19fRklMRV9fJywiJyIuJF9fRi4iJyIsJF9fQyk7CmV2YWwoJF9fQyk7CiRfX0M9IiI7'));?
May 24th, 2008 at 6:34 pm
Hi, does anyone know how to decode this script in my PHP footer:
I tried decoding it by making and using three files and putting it in my root directory:
decrypt.php
coded.txt
decoded.txt (blank file)
But this did not work. The same encrypted script still showed up. Seems they have encrypted it twice or something.
I have taken a theme and used it as a base to design my own theme. I of course wish to give credit to the coder/progammer who created the theme layout but since the graphics are all mine now, I want to place a credit to my business name Pink Laughter Designs to show that I designed the images.
I also DO NOT like that the footer contains back links to other business sites. One is a coin collection site and the other is a furniture store. I don’t feel this is right to force onto my website by using the author’s theme template. Here is the link to the blog where I am trying to customize the footer:
http://pinklaughter.com/blog
If you go to Pinklaughter.com, you will see how I’ve made the design for the link above with my graphics and images.
Any help will be appreciated in helping me to decode the aforementioned script.
Oh and the name of the template is: couleur-vector
May 24th, 2008 at 6:38 pm
Oops here’s the code. It didn’t show up in my last reply:
May 24th, 2008 at 6:43 pm
Sorry about this but this is my third reply as I was not able to preview my comment to see if it would show up correctly. I hope my code shows up. If it does not, I can send it over in email. My email address is attached privately with my reply. Thanks.