Why You Must Avoid Nulled WordPress Themes & Plugins

Whether you are new to developing or hosting a website or guy that develops and hosts hundreds of sites each year, it doesn’t matter! When you see a shining theme demo or plugin with must-have features you will just go to Google and find the way to download a cracked or nulled version of that script or code whatever! The thing is that you don’t know what you are going to pay in return for that free download!

Heyy folks, I’m Aryan from Team VisualWebTechnologies. Writing this article to explore the possibilities of using nulled and cracked themes. To be honest with you all, I did these things many times in my early stage in this industry. Better knowingly or unknowingly I just went for it like a newbie. This is the way you reduce your spending on a website as well as obtain the pleasure of having something like ‘Pro’ in your build. Believe me here when I say that every ‘Proness’ of yours will be stripped away from you in exchange with great frustration which at last will make redevelop your website. Believe me, once again, it’s more damaging than it sounds!

But why? It’s the topic I’m writing this article right? Well, you need to understand that not everyone on the internet is the holiest person. Because mostly you will download something that has been modified with malicious code in it. Something that even intermediate developers will also overlook. Apart from that, there is no known tool to identify cute malicious code hidden inside your nulled package. At least there are no free tools!

 

Observation

At VisualWebTechnologies.com we regularly see users uploading cracked themes and plugins. It’s easy for us to visualize the future that their Control Panel showing 95% to 100% CPU usage and the website will go berserk! To make it even worse users who happily upload the death package of their website will gonna fail to fix their website! Completely decimated by the mistake they made willing will become blame for Hoster! Because most hosting providers will eventually suspend the account. Because that’s the only thing that makes sense now! Want to learn why?

 

Reason No. 1: Ads

A website with a cracked theme will eventually start showing random, unwanted, or 18+ Advertisements without any acknowledgment whatsoever. This means your professional real estate website will show constant ads for visitors to learn how XYZ Cleaner can clean your smartphone! You are lucky here because it’s still the phone’s memory cleaner and not something 18+ content. These things will lead to add a further increase in the resources used by your website.

Result: Suspension of hosting account. Due to unethical use of CPU/RAM.

 

Reason No. 2: Phishing

Cracked code doesn’t stop there! It will utilize the resources of your server to send emails. What kind of emails? Phishing emails! such phishing emails damage the reputation of your domain as well as the server’s IP.

Result: Authorities such as Spamhaus & 80+ others will one by one blacklist your domain as well as our IP. Suspension of service is the only thing now.

 

Reason No. 3: Authority Blacklist

More horrifying, blacklist entries of your domain at various authorities like Google SafeBrowsing Algorithm will begin to start. That’s because your site is not just lowering User Experience by showing senseless Ads to visitors but it’s actively phishing visitors.

Result: I don’t like this very very much as well as Google Algorithm and 48 others. Yes, RIP SEO! Bonus: Hosting Account Suspension!

 

Reason No. 4: Silent Codes

Few more? OK! You will lose the authority of your site because code & content shown on your website can be actively controlled by malicious scripts now. Allowing backdoor to tons of security probes to infiltrate. In no time your lovely website will become a playground for no soooo lovely pieces of stuff on the internet!

Result: Everything mentioned above into 3000 times.

 

Reason No. 5: Even Disturbing

Still, the final blow is left! After you have just devastated your website and its reputation including damage done to your web hosting provider successfully. Your site is now officially opened trash can. Now, you need a real expert to fix the theme/plugins or any nulled scripts. Before that, they need to find it first obviously! Repairing damage done to your domain reputation will take weeks if not months or just need to buy a whole new domain. Apart from that new web hosting account needs to be purchased. Worse than that it will just cost you so much more money than the buying of the actual theme/plugin/script from the official vendor. Don’t forget to build the entire website once again, hopefully not with the same mistakes!

 

Result: You are crying now! I know.

Seriously jokes apart, it’s not a good idea to stick with nulled or cracked codes. In the long run, it is an extremely regrettable mistake. Your website is not just your computer that you can reset anytime. Resetting is the last option here. So it’s your choice now.

 

Conclusion

Nevertheless, some people will continue the journey knowingly. We just salute them (you get the idea). In the best case, we suggest developers should wait till they can afford Premium themes/plugins/scripts. Meanwhile use the free or alternative products. Day by day you will build a sense that paying for something best can bring better feelings in this industry.

 

I hope you will understand the consequences of using nulled and cracked themes are far more devastating. However, I still want to mention that these are the most observations we have been through. There are Pros & exceptions too but that needs a whole new level of skills. It’s not easy. So just don’t play innocent here.

I know that this article needs more information but we all agree that it does not need any more validation! So if you went through all of the points and liked it so far then consider sharing this article and read many more at VisualWebTechnologies.com/blog, It will just make me happy ?