I was planning of reviewing the previous theme that Daily Blog Tips released, the GreenTech WordPress theme but when I saw this one I liked it better and so I decided to review this.

Basic Features:

• AdSense-ready: The theme comes with three units integrated already. A 468×60 unit on top, a 336×280 unit on top of the sidebar and a 120×600 unit on the bottom of the sidebar. You just need to copy & paste the AdSense code on the specific php files.
• Widget-ready: The theme supports widgets, so just drop the ones you use.
• Comment styling: Comments alternate with a different background, making it easier to follow the conversation.
• “Welcome” section on the sidebar: You can customize a “Welcome” or “About us” message easily through the form on the “Theme Options.”
• Search Engine Optimization: The theme comes with title tags optimized, and it already displays only excerpts on archive and category pages, to reduce the duplicate content.

Screenshot:

My Take:
Premium themes are getting popular these days but if you don’t have the budget for it, you don’t have to worry because there are a lot of good quality free/public WordPress themes released almost everyday and one of those is StudioPress.

I love the color scheme used in StudioPress not only because it has blue (my favorite color) on it but because the colors match very well together. I also like the custom background image and how the glossy RSS feed icon stands out on top of the page. How can you miss that?

StudioPress would definitely appeal to a lot of WordPress users because it’s widget-ready, has the option of integrating Adsense units and is already optimized for search engines. Plus it doesn’t require any plugins so it works straight out of the box. I also don’t see any problems tweaking or customizing this theme, provided you have a working knowledge of HTML/CSS and how WordPress themes work. Btw, you can customize this theme any way you want it as long as its for personal use.

The only bug that I found in StudioPress is that if viewed with the Opera browser, the blog title and RSS feed section becomes elevated by about 60 pixels and almost reaches the bottom of the section where the search bar is located. I don’t know if the guys at Daily Blog Tips are aware of that but I’m sure it can be quickly fixed. Btw, it works well with Firefox and Internet Explorer.

I give the StudioPress WordPress theme a 4 out of 5. Hats off to the guys at Daily Blog Tips for another great WordPress theme. Looking forward to more beautiful themes in the near future!

Preview or Download the StudioPress WordPress theme.

SIDENOTE: The program I used to create the screenshot is called Fireshot, a Mozilla Firefox extension that I discovered from Daily Blog Tips and I also included in my recent Weekend Roundup. I’ll also try to do a review on it one of these days.

• Darren Rowse explains Google Sitelinks and how it works.
• Mythbuntu – Linux version of Windows Media Center.
• Discover how microblogging can help you become a better blogger.
• Wanna improve your brand recognition and grab customer’s attention? Try out the Make My Logo Bigger Cream!
• Shoemoney talks about why Google owns the world and the unofficial $200 Google PC.
• Donalyza has a list of the best web-based instant messengers for Yahoo!, MSN, Google Talk, ICQ and AIM..
• Great tip on how to fix blurry icons in Ubuntu.
• Subscribe to Everything Eli’s rss feed and you could win $50.
• Help Area presents the easiest HTML guide for beginners.
• Comments + Luv = CommentsLuv. A good way of appreciating your readers and visitors who leave comments on your blog.
• How to install WordPress locally on your computer. A step by step guide by Techie Girl.

If you have any questions or comments regarding this weekly feature or if you want to suggest a certain link or post for next week’s roundup, please don’t hesitate to contact me. Enjoy your weekend everyone!

The question now is, what is/are the reasons why these sites and blogs were penalized? No one can answer it except Google and for now we can only speculate and come up with different theories. One of the most popular theories is “paid links” that don’t use the nofollow attributes. Another theory is that Google is changing the PageRank algorithm.

If its about “paid links”, it doesn’t make sense because some of the blogs that got penalized don’t sell paid links. Two good examples are ProBlogger and Copyblogger. ProBlogger hasn’t sold paid links in months and Copyblogger never sold links. If its not about paid links, what is it then? Were they penalized for removing Adsense ads or is it just Google readjusting the PR scale?

Andy Beard who was penalized two weeks ago thinks that another reason for some of the penalties is a violation of Google guidelines:

Don’t participate in link schemes designed to increase your site’s ranking or PageRank. In particular, avoid links to web spammers or “bad neighborhoods” on the web, as your own ranking may be affected adversely by those links.

He explains that while some blogs don’t sell paid links, some of them got penalized because they were part of an extensive blog network and that they have massive interlinking between their network sites.

Dot com mogul John Chow, whose blog rank dropped from a PR 6 to a PR 4 has this to say:

I would say the most likely reason for this change is Google is messing around with link resellers like Text Link Ads. By downgrading a large chunk of the blogs on the Internet, Google has made that that much harder for the link resellers to sell links.

If you ask John, he’ll tell you not to worry too much about the recent PR update results. His advise is to check your blog’s search traffic over the next two weeks and if there’s no significant drop and/or remains the same, then PageRank is nothing more but a number. And with that, PageRank also becomes completely irrelevant.

DailyBlogTips has a list of some popular sites/blogs that got penalized:

Popular blogs that recently lost PR:

• Engadget (from 7 to 5)
• AutoBlog (from 6 to 4)
• Problogger (from 6 to 4)
• Copyblogger (from 6 to 4)
• Search Engine Journal (from 7 to 4)
• Quick Online Tips (from 6 to 3)
• Search Engine Roundtable (from 7 to 4)
• Blog Herald (from 6 to 4)
• Weblog Tools Collection (from 6 to 4)
• JohnTP (from 6 to 4)
• Coolest Gadgets (from 5 to 3)

Mainstream websites that were selling links and were also penalized:

• Washington Post (from 7 to 5)
• Washington Times (from 6 to 4)
• Charlotte Observer (from 6 to 4)
• Forbes.com (from 7 to 5)
• SFGate.com (from 7 to 5)
• Sun Times (from 7 to 5)
• New Scientist (from 7 to 5)
• Seattle Times (from 6 to 4)

You can also check out Andy Beard’s list here.

Amidst all the penalties being thrown, there’s one blog that actually got an increase in PR after the last update. AdesBlog jumped from a PR 5 to a PR 7.

In my case, I didn’t even know that Google already did the PR update. I only knew about it while I was chatting with my friend Retz and he told me that Google PageRank was just updated and that his blog’s rank dropped. I immediately visited CheckPageRank and checked my blog’s PageRank and was relieved to find out that it remained at PR 5. I’m sure this will remain as a hot topic in the Internet, especially in the blogosphere and I’m sure everyone would like to know the answer or the reasons for the recent Google PR update results.

Have you checked your blog’s PageRank lately? Did your blog lose or gain ranking? What do you think about this recent development? Does this mean that PageRank is becoming irrelevant? Share your thoughts!