Michael Martine is a long-time blogger who has released a number of custom WordPress themes for free use by other bloggers.

He does not include sponsored links within the themes, but as is common included a simple footer link to his own site as the author. Fair enough you would say, given his work in creating the theme, it’s a fair reward to gain some return linkage, but as he discusses here, that isn’t always a good thing….

There’s been a lot of discussion lately in the WordPressosphere about sponsored text links appearing in WordPress themes available for free download, both for and against. My stance is a cautious “pro” position.

There is an unintended consequence to sponsored WordPress themes that will come up sooner or later for somebody, and when it does, theme sponsors will seriously rethink whether or not they will want to continue sponsoring WordPress themes, and they may even request that their links be pulled from existing themes.

Let me relate my own experiences with this problem. I don’t have any sponsored links in the themes I design and release for free, but this problem isn’t the result of sponsored links. I place a credit backlink in the footer of the themes I release for free, which, in all ways except that it wasn’t paid for, is exactly like a paid text link.

Read the rest of this article at Better Blogging With Michael Martine