Let’s say you are in the market for a WordPress theme. You find a really great WordPress Premium Theme which will cost you somewhere around a hundred bucks. But a quick Google search will likely allow you to find free versions of that theme. Bingo! You saved some money and got what you need! But….

When you download a theme from a source other than the actual creator of that theme, you have NO guarantee that the theme will work properly, or that it isn’t filled up with some sort of back-door or malicious code that can destroy your entire website.

For example, I was playing around with WordPress and quickly realized that a theme can easily OVERWRITE any part of your database – without even needing to be logged in!!! What that means is that you could install a theme, and it will delete every blog you ever posted. Or worse – it can CHANGE your blogs – meaning all your hard work could suddenly be destroyed or changed. Imagine if after you installed a theme all your posts were changed to spam links. Unless you have a backup of the database, kiss your website, google rankings, and audience goodbye.

Another reason to get the theme from only the theme creator is that they will often provide upgrades and updates when you download from them. Take the company Woothemes for example: they have recently upgraded their entire back-end for their themes making it REALLY easy to use and expands your capabilities incredibly. If you download a theme somewhere else, you won’t get that upgrade.

Keep that in mind when you think you might be getting a “deal” by downloading a theme elsewhere.