While every site warns you not to use nulled themes and plugins, knowing what exactly they are and why they could be so harmful is necessary to not come into the trap of using them. This blog will look into nulled themes and plugins and why we should not use them while they tempt you for various reasons
What Exactly Are Nulled Themes And Plugins:
Being the most popular website-building platform, WordPress powers more than one-third of all the websites on the world wide web. It allows you to create your website easily without having to code. There are various themes and plugins, and other features and functionalities to ease this process. But certain themes and plugins aren’t free.
Developers create these after investing time and money, which is why they charge for the same. But a few websites running on tighter budgets cannot afford to buy these functionalities at a premium price, giving birth to nulled themes and plugins, meaning the cracked version of these themes and plugins. This can happen when you can break through the license that safeguards the use of the theme or plugin on a singular website.
These pirated themes and plugins help the hackers generate money and generate revenue from it or use it for malicious purposes. They could also collect personal data in this way. Not only does it discourage innovation, but it is also usually never safe to chose to use nulled themes or plugins. Following are the detailed reasons and explanations for the same.
Reasons To Not Use Any Nulled Themes Or Plugins:
1. Security Purposes
Nulled WordPress themes and plugins are infamously known to carry malware. With no regulations on these sites from where nulled themes and plugins are downloaded, it is very much possible that they have malicious code inserted.
These Codes Could
- Redirect your visitors to other websites to known or unknown websites.
- Affect your SEO by injecting SEO spam.
- Create backdoors to your website and gaining access to important information and data.
Even without the malware, nulled themes still aren’t the wisest choice. Your site could also get de-indexed from the search engine optimizations.
2. Receiving Updates
Timely updates of themes and plugins are necessary as the security features and new functionalities keep being added. An older version of themes or plugins can even bring down page loading speed, affecting the website’s page ranking. The updated versions also bring compatibility fixes, missing on which can make your website incompatible with the WordPress core. It can make your website malfunction or break and become inaccessible.
3. No Support From The Developer End
Few themes and plugins might give you trouble while getting them installed on your website. Developers of premium plugins provide constant support for solving any issues related to compatibility or working of the themes and plugins purchased. You can contact them to have any customer questions answered. With nulled themes and plugins, this benefit can not be leveraged. You can neither access tutorials or documentation provided by developers to the paid customers. In fact, there are higher chances that you may face issues during the installation of the themes and plugins because the code for these could have been edited or modified without you having any knowledge about it.
4. Unethically Discourages Innovation
Developers spend time and money creating a new theme or a plugin and maintaining them from time to time. It requires a lot of effort and involvement. Not using the premium version does not support the innovation they bring to the table. Most of the developers hire staff, support team, creative team, etc. After all the efforts, knowing that the product doesn’t sell because of the pirated version floating in the market could be extremely disappointing. They could also lose money as using nulled software hurts their business. Simultaneously, it is unethical to use any pirated or cracked version of any premium product, including WordPress themes or plugins
5. SEO
A hacked website could build a platform that leads to low-ranked slower websites. This is called black-hat SEO, and it could bring down the SEO of your website and reduce the traffic over time. It could bring you down on the page rankings. The consequences of this could be Google asking you to rehabilitate your website, which is an arduous task in itself.
6. Losing Control
After installing a nulled software, theme, or plugin, you might find yourself logged out of your admin panel. Because the codes could be played with, hackers come in a position where they could control everything, including your server. Such data and control are only better if never lost.
7. All The Free Alternatives
For every premium plugin and theme, with a little patience and perseverance, you should be able to find at least two comparable options, providing the same functionality and similar aesthetics. Rather than taking risks using nulled software, themes, or plugins, choosing a free version is wiser.WordPress provides numerous free plugins and themes, some of which are even better than their premium alternative. There are free plugins available to create contact forms, add Google Analytics, or add functionalities. Similarly, there are various free themes available and aligning with your brand. A few of them have esthetics with a vintage look or a business-oriented feel. Hence we always recommend you never use nulled themes and plugins and find better or equally good available alternatives. Also, always install security plugins before installing any themes or plugins from any source known or known. Such plugins regularly scan your site and defend your website against any hacking attempts.
Choose a safe and secure website round the clock. But if you are looking for an expert to ensure a smooth experience with your website, get in touch with us today. At Helpbot, services like creating a new site, selecting authentic themes and plugins, moving to a new hosting provider, carrying out daily maintenance checks, or changing the website domain, etc., are provided seamlessly without any hassles by our WordPress Experts. We offer our services at different prices to suit your budget accordingly; take a look, and schedule a free call today!
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