[breakingtheborders]

Hi I am new to wordpress and blogging.

What difference is there between the different themes and the free and premuim ones that can be important?

I searched for a customizable seo friendly free theme and decited on intrepidity 1.5.1 wich said it was hihgly seo optimized and customizable.
Still I have no clue what is, I just read what it said.

My goal is to build quality blogs that I will monetize after a while.

Also if I go with a free theme at first and then switch to a premium later, will there be any downside to that?

[daiarian]

Take care when choosing a free WP theme and rely on recommendations.

I have used Flexibility 3 for some time and find it very good. For SEO I use a plug in by Yoast.

Best of luck

[JoyUnltd]

Free themes may have hidden, encrypted code, however, it doesn't automatically mean that's a bad thing. Here is an interesting post about this, but you must read through the comments to understand both sides of the issue.

[teezone]

Paying a few dollars for a theme is well worth the investment - the author gets paid for their work (which means no hidden code, as Renee mentions above!), and in most cases you will also get support for the product.

Just my two cents worth.. I haven't used a free theme for years, and Renee's link confirms those suspicions.

[breakingtheborders]

I had also found that page but havn't read everything. However I searched for free themes in wordpress admin area so from what I understood, thoose free themes found there were safe?

I also saw somewhere that you could get a plugin that could detect malicous code in themes, so won't that solve that part?

Why do you think premium themes are safe? They might as well put in encrypted code if it would har to detect and also charge for it?

Is there anything els that can be important when choosing a theme?

[Witzer]

Originally Posted by breakingtheborders

I also saw somewhere that you could get a plugin that could detect malicous code in themes, so won't that solve that part?

The plugin is called "TAC".

[breakingtheborders]

Thanks for the info so far. However I still wonder if there is any special advantages with premium Themes over free ones?

So far I got that they can have better support if you wonder something.
They might be safer but getting free themes from wordpress directices and posssibly running TAC should make that not a big issue.

[teezone]

By the sounds of it, you're looking for confirmation that free themes are safe, and no different from paid versions.

It's all a matter of opinion here - to me it's a very big issue that the free theme might have some undetected code in it (no matter how good a plugin might be). Or that my site will possibly be flagged by Google if that code is malicious. Support is important to me as well - I can save hours of work by simply communicating with the developer.

Paying $20 for a professional theme is equal to a couple of take-out meals or a few Starbucks coffees.. to me that's nothing when compared to the safety of my website.

If you don't see these potential issues as a big deal, go for free then...

[breakingtheborders]

Originally Posted by teezone

By the sounds of it, you're looking for confirmation that free themes are safe, and no different from paid versions.

It's all a matter of opinion here - to me it's a very big issue that the free theme might have some undetected code in it (no matter how good a plugin might be). Or that my site will possibly be flagged by Google if that code is malicious. Support is important to me as well - I can save hours of work by simply communicating with the developer.

Paying $20 for a professional theme is equal to a couple of take-out meals or a few Starbucks coffees.. to me that's nothing when compared to the safety of my website.

If you don't see these potential issues as a big deal, go for free then...

Yea that was my asumption and you answered it well I think.
That brings me to how do I determine what is a good premium theme since I have no experience in that field and if I google I think I'll find mostly affiliate articles who say their theme is the best.
And 20 is no big deal to pay but don't want to spend like 100 dollars or more yet cause I don't have a lot of money right now.

any more advice on this and I can get started very soon

[Trust]

I would search here by most popular - WordPress › Most Popular « Free WordPress Themes

Ones that usually have a lot of downloads. So people have went thru it and if anything sneaky was in there, somebody probably would have said something. Use the TAC plugin that was mentioned to double check, you can also just look thru the code yourself.

I haven't had any issues with the free ones I've used.

Then if you start making a little money with the site using a free theme, treat yourself and get a premium theme.

I'm looking for some premium ones myself but I'm pretty picky so trying to find one I really like or at least very close.

[breakingtheborders]

Originally Posted by Trust

I would search here by most popular - WordPress › Most Popular « Free WordPress Themes

Ones that usually have a lot of downloads. So people have went thru it and if anything sneaky was in there, somebody probably would have said something. Use the TAC plugin that was mentioned to double check, you can also just look thru the code yourself.

I haven't had any issues with the free ones I've used.

Then if you start making a little money with the site using a free theme, treat yourself and get a premium theme.

I'm looking for some premium ones myself but I'm pretty picky so trying to find one I really like or at least very close.

Thanks a lot was considering thesis since it seem to be so popular but it is a lot of money for me to put up before I have even started, especially since I would need the unlimited version to start building on more than one site.

I just wonder what happens when you change to a new theme when you have customized and built your site, what changes, will things dissapear? If so, what things like, blogposts, plugins. widgets, videos, affiliate banners, members, forums? Will I still have them in a slightly altered layout or what? this is a big questionmark for me still..

[Trust]

Depends on how much you customize. Sometimes I'll try out another theme and there really isn't much change at all besides the look. Maybe something here and there. There is one site where I did a lot, tried another theme, went back to the original and had to do all the customizing all over again. Just depends. But your stuff like posts will still be there, plugins etc. Also might depend on how different the themes are. Some are pretty basic, some have a lot more going on. Basic to basic, not much change. Basic to a more complex theme, more fine tuning.

[teezone]

I've been through a number of theme/template upgrades (Wordpress & Joomla), and it can be a guessing game.. sometimes a pleasant surprise, other times something as small as an extra <div> or duplicate css class can make it a nightmare. But it always works out in the end...

I actually bought Thesis last month, it certainly does have a learning curve, but the flexibility is amazing. I paid $164 for the developer version, which covered two of my own sites immediately. But it was also an investment as I work on client sites.

[breakingtheborders]

Okey,now I'm lost again.. I want to get started but I don't want to have to redo a lot of stuff or loosing a forum I build up etc. Likely I would swich from a popular free theme like atahualpa to Thesis later.
Maybe I have to get a theme like Thesis from the start to be sure I don't have to redo a lot of stuff.

I just want to get started now and I don't want to go wrong..

thanks a lot for you guys helping me out, time for bed now, hope I can get clearer about this tomorow.

[Trust]

You won't lose any of that stuff, posts, comments, forum etc. Theme is more of a skin for your website. If you use a theme like Thesis, then you would have a lot more to do if you change themes, since it's a very customizable type theme, like teezone said:

"it certainly does have a learning curve" it's because it has more stuff than other themes.

If you're just starting out, I would pick a good free theme and if it works out, then you can always buy one. Again, all your content will still be there, the thing you work on when changing themes is more look and feel, layout type stuff mostly.

[breakingtheborders]

Thx for the reply.

I ended upp buying a premium theme from studio press wich I can use for any nr of sites wich was the same price as for Thesis for one site. Also I heard it was a little easier to get started with and people where generaly happy with it. So now I will get on my way.

One more thing, I hadn't really done anything yet except made a couple of new menu tabs but they where gone when I switched to the new premium theme so good thing I decited on doing it from the start then.

[Sarahml]

Premium themes are often worth the investment. Most can be found for under a hundred dollars. I currently use a premium classified theme on my website, and it works great.