The Wordpress Theme Generator - Not!
Posted on July 12, 2007
Filed Under For The Record, Google |
Recently I built a blog called The Everyday Citizen. It is really a rant blog, and I have enjoyed posting to it immensely. I am sure my shrink at the VA would have tons of fun with this. But hey, the guy has no sense of humor anyway.
I am always looking to try something new. I love WordPress, and think it is the next best thing since…’er, sliced bread? (Actually I was thinking of something a bit more lascivious!)
I cam across a site built by a college student that seemed perfect for what I wanted to do. Because the blog was originally designed to be a Pay Per Post blog, I saw no real need to build a fancy, heavily tweaked blog like How To Guidelines. After all, it is just a little money making scheme for a bored writer…
Today, I added a plugin brought to my attention by Dane Morgan. It is a great plugin that generates an xml sitemap, updates it each time ya post, and then pings Google. Anything automatic excites the hell out of me, so I uploaded to EDC, activated it, set the parameters, and rebuilt the sitemap. On the verification page, I was directed to Google Webmaster Tools to verify the sitemap, etc. In the process of verification, which involves the simple process of uploading a blank HTML page to your root directory, I got an error message that I felt was returned because the theme is a very simple one, with few files. I opted to add a meta tag to my header on the blog, and then went back to Google. Lo and behold, another error message was returned, stating the blog was already claimed, and that I was not the owner.
By now a bit incensed, I went to the blog and started digging through the header. There I found the meta tag Google gives you to verify - only it belonged to someone else. I immediately removed it, added my own, and quickly verified that the blog belonged to me.
This pisses me off. I have no idea of what the ramifications would be if push ever came down to shove, but I am definitely the owner, not some snot nosed college kid that feels the need to mess with people’s blogs. Is it an ego thing with him? Is he up to some underhanded trick? Don’t know, don’t really care. But sage advice needs confirming here. If it is free, there has gotta be a catch. Don’t use Wordpress Theme Generator. You might wish you hadn’t…
Drive on…
Charlie~
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<a href="http://bit.ly/HMvg"><b>http://bit.ly/HMvg</b></a>: 09/09/09 07:27pm
<a href="http://bit.ly/HMvg"><b>http://bit.ly/HMvg</b></a>: 09/09/09 07:27pm
Comments
3 Responses to “The Wordpress Theme Generator - Not!”
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This kind of deceptive practice is what drives a lot of the current hysteria and distaste for sponsored themes.
And the sad thing is that it’s not necessary. If you include a simple credit link, or even a sponsor link and you are upfront about it a good number of people will leave it intact. There is simply no reason to hide things like this in themes. It’s deceptive, dishonest and quite frankly cowardly.
I can’t imagine what life must be like for people who feel the need to do these things. I really do almost feel sorry for them.
There may be the possibility that this kid is dumb enough so he built the header, etc, and failed to remove the meta tag claiming ownership. If nothing else, it is shoddy practice - something I have no time for. With most of this stuff being open source, there is also the possibility that someone is trying to pull a fast one. Regardless, it is something that needs addressing…
C~
I generally pass on registering in order to make a comment, but this post got my attention.
I am not sure how one would benefit of claiming my blog as their own. Maybe it’s just an oversight on the part of Wordpress Theme Generator owner.
Can it it be that it passes on the same code to every one using the tool? But it does not make sense because your url is different.