Seems to me the directories craze is not over yet and despite all the rumers about google penalties, directories still prospare and bring submitters a very good benefit. One of the directories I decided to submit to recently is Top Blog Directory. My choice fell on it not only because its PageRank 5 and the submission does not cost you money, but also because my blog will end up in a relevant links environment. Moreover, there is an interesting feature that allows you can sort the blogs in according to their Google PR, feedcount, Alexa, Technorati and sent out traffic, so I must say it’s quite interesting to browse the blogs and see which of them is the most popular based on different parameters.

From what I could see, this directory is very well indexed and gives good results in Search Engines, not to mention that thanks to the interactive features, you are likely to get hits and real traffic from this directory. In order to submit your website, you need to register, and registration is, of course, free.

Bear in mind that this directory is only for blogs, so if you are looking for interesting blogs to read on a daily basis — just browse this site by your topics and interests, for sure you will find something worth reading!

As being a designer myself I often browse other’s blog to see what tips and tricks I can learn from the bigger sharks out there, and one of these lovely “sharks” will of course be the writers behind stylishdesign.com - Robert and Andrei. If you also read their blog (and if you don’t I highly recommend you to!) you will learn plenty of new things about Google, SEO, internet, web design, networks and even servers. By the way, speaking of which — have you read their article about server backup yet? Quite amusing article, just try to keep track with the numbers throughout the story. Finally someone does NOT blame the software and hardware!

I am proud to present my new wordpress theme - Mørk Horisont (Dark Horizon, in Norwegian).

This is a professionally designed wordpress theme with beautiful combination of web 2.0 colours, dark horizon image and rounded corners. For a limited time we will be offering this theme for a download for only $8, instead of $10. Thats, uhhmm, 20% save, my friend! You can preview the live demo if the theme HERE.

What’s included?

• Fully coded wordpress theme.
• PSD file of the logo.

What’s the difference between this theme and the free themes I offer?

Basically, many bloggers want unique, or at least remotely unique design, but due to the high prices for custom designs, most bloggers today cannot afford it. Using a free wp theme means your blog will look like 1000 others on the net, if not more. Here, for a pretty symbolic fee of $10 $8, you get a professionally looking design with juicy colours, professional structure, fast loading, optimized for various plug ins and XHTML valid (please see Copyright credits for coding below).

*** Please note that all payments are non refundable. You will be asked to confirm the payment while going through the check out form via PayPal (secure payment), and once the payment is made, you will be automatically redirected to the download page. If you have any difficulties downloading, please email me to lorelei [at] loreleiweb [dot] com with your transaction ID.

Copyright notice:
This theme is a modified version of WPdesigner.com’s Music theme which is available for Club members only. As a member of the club, I am free to make commercial and non commercial use of this template on unlimited amount of domains. Please see their TOS for more details. When you download please read the readme.txt file for more details.

Thanks WPNorge.org for the correction!

No words needed, just go and check it for yourself.

Bear in mind that not all the plug ins proved to be competible with the latest version, the embedded video which we all use, for example, won’t work with 2,5 version so before you run to upgrade make sure you deactivate all the plug ins and activate one by one, checking if they work or not.

Best feature in my opinion is the in-built gallery which will look like this.  Those ofuse who are a lil` old fashioned and hate changes are not going to love the new look, but hey, the world is heading forwarded, can’t do much about it.  So go and download it

If you are a designer who makes sponsored wordpress themes, you probably know that the peek of selling sponsored links on the free themes is already behind us. A few months ago it was a real hit, Digital Point Forum was practically over flooded with titles like “sponsor this unique wordpress theme” and now it’s a safe to say the trend is going downhills. Why? Who brought it down?

1. Thank you, Google. Advertisers buy links in order to increase their Ranking and SERP’s in the big G, so with the wave of penalties that advertisers suffered from paid links, quite a lot of them stepped down from the race for sponsored links.

2. Thank you, Rippers. When people start to get paid for something, they also start looking for a way to shorten the path to the cash… and just rip other’s themes. After having bought twice (!) a ripped theme from someone who claimed it to be 100% original, I really lost trust in “wordpress designers”. Moreover, my themes (mainly Modern Magic) was sold and resold and redistributed a several times already (I will not link to the rippers but I did already in my other blog), fighting against the kids who do it is pretty useless. They are all kids, they are all greedy, and they all get pissed off with you if you point out to their rip-off. Bearing all this in mind, advertisers start hesitating to invest hundreds of dollars in a SEO tactic that stands on shaky ethical ground.

3. Thank you, crap designers. While some people rip, others design themselves, but “unique” design does not always mean “good”. Or remotely good. Or somewhat good. We came to the point that there are TOO many
Read More from "Little Hope Left for Sponsored WP Themes"

Marcus is a new theme from toptut.com, in my opinion, very original and nice design, including photos I took myself (in my own garden!), big RSS icon, nice 3D shadow elements and “I love my blog” badge. 2 columns against dark wood background — excellent for any type of blogs. Very artistic yet easy for the eyes. Enjoy!

Live Demo | Download 

• Widgets ready
• 3 columns
• Dark colours scheme
• Fixed width
• Images float and “wrapped” in text
• Big Rss Icon
• Based on Earthling

Live Demo | Download

Brought to you by the talented creator behind WordpressMania.org — Tomas Sramek, — this is one of the most convenient and useful themes for webmasters that you are going to come across. Inspired by the structure of John Chow, optimized for Adsense, and ready for gavatars in the comments section, this 3 columns wordpress theme is simply ideal for any blog. Moreover, the download includes the PSD file of the header logo and the RSS section, so you can modify it for your needs. Web 2.0 design, fixed width, and fast loading. Enjoy!

Live Demo | Download