Easy and Consistent WordPress Backup Helpers

You know you should but you sometimes don’t. And just when you are about to, something goes wrong and it’s already a little too late. It gets a little more complicated when you are handling more than one website, maintaining several eCommerce sites, or handling sites with years and years of content. You could rely on your webhost to do it for you, but, that’s a little too risky for comfort. It’s what every website owner, webmaster, web host should do. Backup. Consistently. Why?

If these statements sound familiar,

“My site got hacked.”
“I accidentally deleted some code and it wiped out all my data.”
“I changed my theme and it messed up all my content.”
“I activated a plugin but it wasn’t compatible and it corrupted a whole bunch of my files.”

you know that you could have avoided the consequences of procrastination if you had kept a backup file before implementing any changes. On a larger scale, systems can shut down, natural disasters can hit, web hosting companies can go bankrupt or close shop. Without your own personal backup system, you could lose themes, plugins, content, images, widgets, customization and a whole lot more. It just makes sense to be ready all the time.

Here are some highly recommended backup options for your peace of mind:

myRepono WordPress Backup Plugin

myRepono WordPress Backup Plugin is an easy-to-install WordPress plugin which automates the myRepono API setup process, enabling you to setup automated WordPress backups in a matter of minutes. myRepono is an online website backup service which enables you to securely backup your WordPress web site files and mySQL database tables using an online and web-based management system. The myRepono online website backup service allows you to automate the process of backing up your entire WordPress website and database, including all post, comments and user data, and your WordPress PHP, template and plugin files.

WordPress Backup to Dropbox

WordPress Backup to Dropbox is a free plugin that keeps your website backed up to Dropbox regularly. The plugin’s simple interface lets you setup your backup cycle in minutes giving you peace of mind that your precious blog posts, media files and template changes are backed up. Simply choose a day, time, & frequency for your backup to be performed. In order to use the plugin you will need a Dropbox account.

BackWPup

BackWPup is a free plugin that creates flexible, scheduled WordPress backups to any location. The backup files can be used to save your whole installation including /wp-content/ and push them to an external Backup Service, if you don’t want to save the backups on the same server. With the single backup .zip file you are able to restore an installation. You can also purchase the pro version that has additional backup features.

VaultPress

VaultPress provides realtime, continuous backup and synchronization of every post, comment, media file, revision and dash­board setting across at least two separate cloud services in addition to the Automattic grid, ensuring no loss of content. Using WordPress hooks to receive alerts when information changes on your site, VaultPress immediately syncs all of your changes with their servers.

Snapshot

Make a quick and easy backup of all of your content, without fiddling with the server or signing up for an expensive backup solution, restore backups with one easy click, t backup all your regular WordPress stuff (posts, pages, comments, taxonomies etc.) and also every table of your database, for every plugin and theme you have with Snapshot, a premium plugin from WPMU Dev. With Snapshot you can create as many ‘Time Machine’ snapshots of your entire database (or individual tables) as you want, automatically schedule backups, save to Dropbox, Amazon S3 or by SFTP, and so much more.

The time, money and effort you exert in backing up your files is nothing compared to the price of losing all your website content, files, traffic and income, and the effort to recover (if possible) all of them. In this case, an ounce of prevention is indeed better than a pound of cure.

Stress-Free Beauty, Health, and Medical WordPress Themes

The beauty, health and wellness industry is a lucrative industry. People will always want to look good and be healthy. Setting up an impressive website for your beauty or health and wellness business is key to getting the type of clients you want. Here are some great WordPress themes to help you create the right aesthetic for your beauty and health business online:

Blush

Blush is a professionally designed salon/spa/health/ beauty theme from Aloha Themes. This premium theme is easy to customize with lots of features to choose from – from using your own logo, changing theme colors, using widgets or built in shortcodes – to create the signature look you want.

Health and Beauty Theme

Health and Beauty Theme from Organic Themes is a beautiful and cleanly designed premium theme that won’t disturb your zen. This calm and soothing theme complemented by the overall classy and professional aesthetics is perfect for promoting health and beauty services that will impress even the pickiest clients.

HairPress

HairPress is a fully responsive premium WordPress theme perfect for hair and beauty salons, wellness centers, and professional medical services. It includes several built-in page templates ready for you to use straight away. Hair concerns are not just for women. Men are just as vain when it comes to hair. HairPress is a theme that’s not too feminine and it has lots of customization features that will help you create a strong online presence that will appeal to both men and women.

The Beauty Salon

The Beauty Salon is a sleek, modern, and professional looking theme that speaks credibility and confidence all over. One of the many obstacles to getting clients to try a new service or a new store is the lack of confidence. It is important for business websites to create the impression that they know what they are doing to allay fears of potential customers. This premium theme does just that and more. It’s packed with advanced features such as a sliding menu card, a tiled gallery, custom page templates, and multiple shortcodes to create that wow factor you need. Give your website a total makeover with The Beauty Salon Premium WordPress Theme.

HealthPress

If you are a health or medical practitioner, a wellness center, or a healthcare or medical service institution wanting to create your own website, check out HealthPress Premium WordPress Theme. This responsive theme is perfect for health and medical professionals, clinics, centers, hospitals, and other related industries. Running a health or medical related business online is tricky because medical consultations are personal and real world connections are important. HealthPress contains features like galleries, bios, credentials, services, testimonials, and other info templates to create that connection between your users and your medical team.

WP-Venus

Named after the Roman goddess of beauty and love, WP-Venus has that soft and pretty aesthetic that will appeal to a more feminine audience. With its soft colors, clean, responsive layout and extreme versatility, WP-Venus is an ideal theme for an online health, wellness, beauty and fashion, and even entertainment magazine that can appeal to a broader audience.

ThemeForest Theme Sells Over 800 Copies In One Week

One WordPress theme, 7 days, 800 copies, $36,000 grand. A lot of WordPress authors and developers on Themeforest would love to achieve even a fraction of that and most of them are probably scratching their heads wondering why. This popular theme has even dislodged U-Design from its top spot for the past few weeks and to think it’s the only item in this author’s Themeforest portfolio. If you are wondering what theme achieved such a feat check out AVADA, a responsive multi purpose theme created by ThemeFusion.

Let’s dissect this theme a little bit further and try or simply attempt to figure out why the market is loving this theme.

Overall aesthetic

Avada’s layout can be classified as clean, straightforward, and professional-looking with very neutral colors and lots of white space. If you are familiar with real estate open houses, real estate professionals really spend a lot of time to “stage” a property before “opening” it up to the market. Care is taken to display only enough design elements to highlight the property’s unique and outstanding features, pulling back from adding unnecessary and distracting clutter. This deliberate “staging” is intended to give the potential buyer the room to imagine what he can do with it to meet his own needs. The focus is on its potential and what it can become. Avada is like that, a well-staged theme with lots of potential for all types of buyers. The demo is clear and easy to maneuver, giving customers a taste of all that it can be for whatever need they have.

Features & Functions

This premium theme is not just a pretty face. It has enough built in features and functions to create the website you need for yourself or for your clients. Everyone wants to create a website that is unique and representative of himself or his brand. Avada has a plethora of feature and function choices that, when mixed and matched together, with the client’s own images and content, can create a one of a kind and totally different website every time. Here are some of Avada’s easy to customize features that you can “play” with:

  • Homepage – 10 versions
  • Sliders – 6 styles
  • Headers – 5 versions
  • Page Templates
    • About Us – 2 versions
    • Services – 2 versions
    • Pricing Options
    • Meet the Team
    • Side Navigation
    • Contact Page – 2 versions
    • FAQ – 2 versions
    • Sidebars – Left and Right
    • Full-width page
    • 404 page
  • Portfolio – 6 layouts
  • Blog – 4 layouts
  • Custom Posts, Custom Widgets,
  • Shortcodes for Elements, Icons, Media, Pricing Tables & Typography
  • Responsive
  • Retina-ready

Support

Aside from the extensive, detailed documentation and easy to follow HD narrated video tutorials, Avada generously includes the entire set of PSDs (20+ files) for those who want to customize the theme even further. Buyers get 100% free support via their support forum. Customer feedback has been, overall, favorable so far. Providing WordPress theme support is not an easy task especially if you are servicing thousands of buyers. To receive favorable feedback regarding their theme support indicates that they have a support system that really works. This translates into higher buyer confidence which translates further into higher sales.

Avada has sold almost 15,000 copies to date and has received more than a thousand 5-star ratings which is something worth noting. Receiving a 5-star rating from 2 or more people can be easily dismissed but 1,000 or more satisfied customers can’t be ignored.

Fluke or luck? We think not. A good product with a lot of hard work backing it up sounds more like it. If this is the trend that the market is supporting as far as WordPress themes are concerned, then it is good sign that the market and the industry are headed for better days.

Get Avada Now!

GPL Licensing and WordPress for Normal People

The average WordPress user probably starts off with a simple and very basic desire to set up his/her own website. There are many platforms out there but the platform that most users end up with or choose to use is WordPress. These users either attempt to set up their own website on their own and learn as they go while others hire someone to do it for them. Not many are familiar with the legal or technical aspects surrounding the use of this software but it does not remove the responsibility of finding out the software’s terms, conditions, and proper use. Let’s familiarize ourselves with some of these technical terms. Some of these terms are quoted verbatim to remain true to its original intent.

What is WordPress anyway?

WordPress is a free and open source publishing software and content management system (CMS) with a focus on ease of use, speed and a great user experience. “WordPress was born out of a desire for an elegant, well-architectured personal publishing system built on PHP and MySQL and licensed under the GPL.

What does free and open source mean?

Open source doesn’t just mean that you can view the source code — it has political and philosophical implications as well. Open source, or “Free Software”, means you are free to modify and redistribute the source code under certain conditions. Free doesn’t refer to the price, it refers to freedom. The difference between the two meanings of free is often characterized as “Free as in speech vs. free as in beer.” The GPL is free as in speech.

“Free software” does not mean “noncommercial”. A free program must be available for commercial use, commercial development, and commercial distribution. Commercial development of free software is no longer unusual; such free commercial software is very important. You may have paid money to get copies of free software, or you may have obtained copies at no charge. But regardless of how you got your copies, you always have the freedom to copy and change the software, even to sell copies.

GPL or General Public License according to WordPress terms and conditions:

The GNU General Public License is intended to guarantee your freedom to share and change free software – to make sure the software is free for all its users. This General Public License applies to most of the Free Software Foundation’s software & to any other program whose authors commit to using it.

When we speak of free software, we are referring to freedom, not price. Our General Public Licenses are designed to make sure that you have the freedom to distribute copies of free software (and charge for this service if you wish), that you receive source code or can get it if you want it, that you can change the software or use pieces of it in new free programs; and that you know you can do these things.

To protect your rights, we need to make restrictions that forbid anyone to deny you these rights or to ask you to surrender the rights. These restrictions translate to certain responsibilities for you if you distribute copies of the software, or if you modify it. For example, if you distribute copies of such a program, whether gratis or for a fee, you must give the recipients all the rights that you have. You must make sure that they, too, receive or can get the source code. And you must show them these terms so they know their rights.

The reasons for WordPress releasing under the GPL are both practical and idealistic. WordPress was born of the very freedom mentioned earlier. The predecessor to the WordPress project, b2/cafelog, was also an open source project.
(source: WordPress.org/gpl)

What does this mean to the average Joe?

According the GNU.org and its Free Software Definition, you have the freedom:

to run the software for any purpose or any kind of job
to study how the software works, change it and improve it
to redistribute copies in a manner that does not conflict with central freedoms
to redistribute copies of your modified version to benefit the whole community

Split Licenses, the GPL, the Marketplace and the WordPress Foundation

The GPL and WordPress conflict is not new. There have been several occasions before when conflicts of interest have risen between theme providers (ex. Chris Pearson and Matt Mullenweg) and the WordPress Foundation’s interpretation of how the GPL license is applied. The most recent debacle involving Jake Caputo, ThemeForest, and WordPress (resulting in Caputo’s banning from speaking at WordCamps) surfaced earlier this year. Envato and WordPress have been at odds because of the alleged violations of the GPL by the former. Envato claims to be GPL compliant while at the same time been implementing dual-license or split licensing particularly on WordPress themes and plugin. What’s wrong with that?

Here’s a simple analogy to illustrate this.

Choosing a publishing platform is like choosing a car brand. You have several choices: Chevy, Cadillac, a Benz, or a Toyota. Whichever you choose, the technology to create it, the patents, the materials used, and all the basic components like the framework, the engine, the wheels, and everything that makes it run to take you anywhere you want are already built into its system, subject to the manufacturer’s warranty. When it transfers to you, the car manufacturers have no control with what you do with it – use it for business, donate, repaint, etc.

As far as publishing platforms are concerned, you have WordPress, Drupal, or Joomla as the vehicle of your content. In the case of WordPress, the HTML code, the PHP and everything under hood that makes it run are built in and are 100% GPL. When it is transferred to your possession, free or otherwise, you have the freedom to modify, change, sell, copy, distribute, and do whatever you want under the GPL license provided that it retains all those freedoms that you enjoyed when you first got it.

The conflict between Envato and WordPress arose because of the licensing policies of the former, that were not, in the eyes of WordPress, GPL compliant. As far as WordPress is concerned, if your theme is “riding” on the WordPress framework and cannot run independently apart from it, then it inherits and is subject to all the GPL attributes as well.

On the other hand, Envato’s split license states that:

Envato’s marketplace license for themes or plugins sold on the marketplaces covers all the components of these items, except for the specific components covered by the GPL. This is why it’s called a split license: because different license terms can cover individual components that make up a single item.
The PHP component and integrated HTML are covered by the GPL. The rest of the components created by the author (such as the CSS, images, graphics, design, photos, etc) are covered by the marketplace license.

As explained earlier, our license also allows for specific components of an item, which inherit the GPL from the platform they’re built for, to be licensed under the GPL. Using this split license complies with the GPL’s requirements, while still providing protection of the author’s copyright on assets they’ve created.

There are valid points on both sides. Proprietary licensing violates the spirit of the GPL while on the other hand, piracy on the creative output of theme authors are also valid concerns. Conflicts arise to reveal gray areas that need to be dealt with or addressed. Striking a balance between GPL compliance and protecting the creative or intellectual output of theme authors is a tough juggling act. We believe the conversation will still continue.

Update as of February 2013

Envato did a survey about licensing among their users and published the results specifically relating to GPL. They have announced that a 100% GPL option is now available for authors on ThemeForest. Jake Caputo has also posted that he has again been invited to participate in WordCamps.

Useful Articles to Read:

Why WordPress Themes are Derivative of WordPress
WordPress, GPL, and Copyright Case Law
Matt Mullenweg – Q&A – WordPress & GPL
Themes are GPL too

Tasty Food and Restaurant WordPress Themes to try this 2013

Mobile devices have changed the way people access the internet. More and more people use it to search for information relevant to their locations. As a result, mobile internet and mobile computing have helped boost local businesses that have an online presence. If your local business isn’t online yet, you need to be. Here are some delicious food and restaurant WordPress themes to help drum up some noise for your business:

Bistro Responsive Foodie App Theme

Bistro Premium WordPress Theme is a responsive theme that includes a great booking app system to help you monitor & manage customer bookings and reservations. It also features: a specials, promotions and event management system, a calendar system, photo galleries, google maps integration with driving directions, countless custom widgets, and is also translation ready.

Eatery – Responsive Restaurant WordPress Theme

Eatery Premium WordPress Theme is a responsive restaurant/cafe theme that includes: a flexible full menu system easily customizable using custom posts, a built-in 24hr-enabled reservations form template, shortcodes options for elegant text styling, image galleries & slideshows, numerous color theme options with 5 preset color styles to start with, and global currency support.

Elegantia – Restaurant and Cafe WordPress Theme

Elegantia is a rich and luxurious-looking premium WordPress theme for restaurants & cafes. It has many features specifically designed for a restaurant business like: ajax-based Reservation template, Food Menu Module, Events Module, sortable Gallery module, ajax based and Google maps-enabled Contact module, and an impressive Homepage with full width slider and services information.

Coffee Shop – Responsive WP Theme for Restaurant

Coffee Shop is an easy to install premium responsive WP template for cafes and bistros. This dark styled responsive theme is feature packed. It includes: custom post types and templates for menu, events, staff, it is fully localized, has numerous color options, custom widgets, and includes 5 layered PSD files for further customization.

Delicieux Restaurant WordPress Theme

Delicieux Premium WordPress Theme is a visually appetizing theme perfect for restaurants. It comes with a Drag and Drop Page Builder feature for managing different page elements in the theme. It features a menu system, a google maps enabled contact page, a widgetized footer with 6 layouts, a blog page with 8 layout options, and advanced theme options panel for creating custom theme changes like background image changes, sliders, and shortcodes management.

Using a WordPress Page as Your Home Page

This has been tested to work in WordPress 2.X and above. This article was last updated in March, 2013.

Welcome to WordPress Wednesday! Each week we’ll be answering as many of your questions about the blogging platform WordPress as possible. If you have questions you’d like answered that aren’t covered here, feel free to drop them in the comment form below. Covering topics such as themes, plugins, popular tutorials, current WordPress promotion codes, and more – be sure to jump in with your questions and comments.

QUESTION: I’d like to use something other than my recent posts as my home page. Is that possible within WordPress?

It’s not only possible it’s relatively easy. The first step is to create a page to serve as your new home page. For the purpose of this example, we’ll call it “My New Home Page.”

  1. In your WP control panel, select the Pages tab.
  2. Click on Add New.
  3. Give the page a title – something like, “HOMEPAGE”
  4. Create the content for your home page just as you would a blog post.
  5. Click the Publish button.

While you’re still in the Write Page subpanel, create a second page:

  1. Title this one “RECENT POSTS” (or whatever you want to call the page that your recent posts appear on).
  2. You don’t need to have any Page Content for this one.
  3. Click the Publish button.

Now you’re ready tell WP to use your new page as the home page:

  1. In the Settings panel on the left navigation select Reading.
  2. At the top of the Reading Options subpanel you’ll see:
    How To Set Page As Homepage In WordPress - Step 1
  3. To change the front page to your new home page, select “A static page” for Front page displays.
  4. Select “HOMEPAGE” from the Front page drop down menu.
  5. Finally, be sure to tell WP which page to use to display your recent posts. From the Posts page menu select the “Recent Posts” page you created earlier. As you can see in the picture below, our posts page has not been set yet.
    How To Set Page As Homepage In WordPress - Step 2
  6. Click Save Changes.

View your site. “HOMEPAGE” should now be your home page. You also do not need to put the title in all caps. This was simply done for our example.

Note: Any Page content you have entered for the page you designate as your Posts page will be overwritten by the listing of your recent posts. The content will still be there, it simply won’t show while you have that particular page set as the Post page.

See also the WordPress Codex page: Reading Options Subpanel

If you have a question you’d like me to address or (better yet) if you have a WordPress tip, trick or tutorial you’d like to share let us know!

For The Best Looking WordPress Themes, We Recommend:

Over 80 Premium Themes (and counting) For $39.

Themes Town Is The New Best Deal in WordPress?

Every once in awhile you stumble upon something pretty awesome that simply blows your mind away. Guess what? There’s a new WordPress site that just does that. It’s called THEMES TOWN. If you haven’t heard of Themes Town, you NEED to see it for yourself. There’s really nothing like it so far on Planet WordPress and we have seen most of what’s out there.

What’s Themes Town all about?

Before we get into that, we have to commend the designers who put this creative site together. From the first page to the last, the creativity you experience on the site is truly a delight. Every page is like a treasure hunt where you find little nuggets of gold tucked away in drop downs, arrows, and drawers. Reading through the information is like turning the pages of a storybook. Not a dull moment indeed even if you are simply browsing through the Pricing Table. Who says that websites should all look a certain way?

But wait, it gets better. Not only are you treated to this visual delight, you also get access to valuable WordPress resources you can use for your own website. We all know that many websites come out with their own daily or weekly listings of “20 Best Free Responsive WordPress Themes” or “50 Best Free Magazine Themes” and so many other great lists and roundups. The problem with this is that you have to go through their long lists just to find what you need scrolling endlessly and going back and forth between the list and the demo button (and then how are you supposed to know it’s code is good and free of malicious or encrypted links)? Themes Town has come up with a pretty cool solution that can be found in its Member’s Area.

Themes Town Member’s Area

Themes Town - Members

Say goodbye to endless scrolling and sorting through free WordPress themes post archives. Themes Town has done all the hard work for you.

From their site…

(We) have taken the world of WordPress and condensed it down to an amazing member’s area that is chalked full of the latest and greatest themes and plugins. Each has been painstakingly reviewed by our team to be of the highest quality, free to download, and ready to use right away. It is our goal to make your job as easy as point, demo, download, and use.

One of the many risks of downloading free WordPress themes is vulnerability to malicious code. It’s not hard to find free themes. There are thousands of them available out there. The challenge is finding the good ones that you’d actually want to use and that won’t hurt your website.

It’s nice to know that there is a place called Themes Town where you can download free WordPress themes without having to worry about installing unwanted code and knowing that each of the nearly 200 themes have been pre-screened by WordPress experts.

Another great feature of the Member’s Area is the ability to sort themes according to categories. This helps members narrow down their choices according to their specific theme needs. Each week, new themes and plugins are added to their growing members area, and we have never seen such a complete resource for WordPress.

But that’s still not all.

In addition to everything thus far, Themes Town kicks it into overdrive with their exclusive Themes (and soon to be plugins) that you can only get in the Member’s Area. These cutting-edge WordPress Themes are created with the latest trends in web development including being fully responsive, having clean code, and employing all the best practices for quick load time, SEO, and more. Reliability and convenience all in one awesome site for just $55 (one time). Not a bad deal at all, don’t you think?

Themes Town is not just a good product that offers good value to consumers. It is a great product that provides great service and valuable resources that will benefit many in the WordPress community. And we have to say, it is a really beautiful and creative site.

Don’t walk…RUN to Themes Town and get your membership today!

Visit ThemesTown

Understanding 401, 301 and 302 Redirects and How It Affects Your SEO

Google Panda now includes improving user experience as one of the key factors in attaining a high website quality score. This means that website owners now need to conduct regular site wide audits to see if their website contains any broken or dead links that could affect user feedback. Broken or dead links frustrate and annoy users and if this happens often enough on your website, these users will leave, resulting in a higher bounce rate on your site. Links that lead to nowhere are one of the most common complaints on the Internet. Not good for user experience and definitely bad for SEO.

To redirect is to direct someone to a different location or by a different route. Your web server returns several error messages when encountering a problem such as broken urls, inactive web pages, new website, new web page, or probably site under construction. When this happens, users get redirected knowing or unknowingly.

Here are the most common ones you need to pay attention to:

The 301 Redirect

301 Redirect, also known as a permanent redirect, means you are permanently moving content previously existing on a page or an entire site, including all the attributes, qualities, links, PageRank, Page Authority, and SEO juice that belong to it, to a new url of your choice. It is the most efficient and most SEO friendly way of redirecting your traffic after a change in permalinks. 301 redirect maintains your search engine rank and re-indexes your pages, posts and everything else on the basis of your new permalinks.

The 302 Redirect

302 Redirect, also known as a temporary redirect, means you are temporarily moving content previously existing on a page or an entire site, to a temporary location. This also means that you may bring back the old url in the future. This type of redirect does not transfer any of the SEO juice and value of the original page. 301 Redirect is often used specifically when testing a new page for client feedback or when your site or page is undergoing maintenance.

The 404 Error Page

404 Redirect occurs when a customer on your site tries to access a pagename that doesn’t exist. These are dead pages that link nowhere and gives users a bad experience. If these pages remain unfixed, Google will de-index these pages and all the valuable links, rank, SEO juice, and authority attributed to these pages will be wasted. 404 Error pages that are not redirected will annoy users and make them leave your site immediately. You can, however, always add 301 redirect it to homepage, to take advantage of link juice or even create a custom 404 page to redirect them to another page you like.

Errors are unavoidable and links do get broken that is why it is always a good practice to do site maintenance regularly and check and double check all your links on your website to see if they are active.

ThemeGrade Gets A Facelift

ThemeGrade loyal subscribers will be delighted to hear the great news about their favorite review site. This great WordPress resource that started in 2009 just went through a design overhaul and what was already a great website has now become even better. In our previous article about ThemeGrade, we touched on the unique services this website offers the WordPress community. The information and reviews of different WordPress themes and WordPress providers have helped guide hundreds if not thousands of WordPress buyers and users in making informed WordPress purchase decisions saving them time and money in the process.

What’s great about the upgraded and updated ThemeGrade?

Overall Design

ThemeGrade has switched from a dark theme design and opted for a more minimalist, white spaced design making it easier for users to find reviews of different WordPress Providers and WordPress Themes. Below are some of the design improvements implemented in ThemeGrade’s new look:

  • Clean and Minimalist Design
  • Simple, Easy, and User-Friendly Navigation
  • Streamlined, Organized, and Easy to Access Information
  • Easy to See Ratings
  • Improved Readability

Grading System

ThemeGrade provides an easy to understand grading system for both WordPress Themes and WordPress providers. WordPress themes are graded in 2 categories and are awarded a Bronze, Silver, or Gold award based on the combined score of both tests:

General Test – these tests focus more on coding and W3C compliance(HTML & CSS), browser compatibility, support from designer, post area tests, nested/threaded comments, sidebar link hierarchy, and other special effects.

SEO Test – these tests give you an idea how well a theme has been optimized for search engines. Tests are done for off-page and on-page optimization. Review scope includes coding and W3C compliance for SEO. SEO testing for home page heading, post and page heading, post and page title tag, and content code position.

WordPress Providers, on the other hand, are graded and are awarded Gold, Silver, or Bronze Awards based on the following:

Functionality and Usability – these tests focus more on the user’s experience regarding features of themes offered by the WordPress provider usually targeting usability, ease of use, and seamless integration to a theme design.

Graphic Design – these tests focus on the overall look and design of themes offered by the WordPress provider. Page design on header image, color, contrast, font and readability, and element placement are all taken into consideration in the review.

Coding – the General Test and SEO Test are also applied to the themes offered by the WordPress Provider. Test results are then added and averaged to arrive at an overall coding score of the theme provider.

Overall Best Score – The overall score of each developer is based on the sum of the providers’ score in each category. Theme providers with the highest overall score will be rated as the TOP WordPress Theme providers.

Search Functionality

ThemeGrade has made searching for WordPress reviews and ratings so much easier. These search filters are simple, easy to use and are categorized as follows:

Efficient Search Filters are grouped according to:

  • Theme Price
  • Theme Structure
  • Theme Category
  • Theme Ranking
  • Tags

ThemeGrade’s current facelift removes all the unnecessary clutter and information overload that distract from the more important information contained in the reviews. Finding the information users need is now more pleasant and user-friendly. With all these improvements implemented both on the design front and the functionality side, we give ThemeGrade an overall score of A+.

Check out the new look of ThemeGrade.