This blog post is regarding what nulled WordPress themes and plugins are and also the reasons why you should restrain from using them.
Powering more than 40% of total sites on the web, WordPress is the most beginner-friendly and widely utilized content management system across the globe. The reason for WordPress’s massive user base is due to ease of plugins and themes availability.
WordPress themes and plugins are mainly categorized into two types:
- Free Plugins and themes
- Premium Licensed Plugins and themes
Now, as you got some basic idea about the types of WordPress themes and plugins, let’s move ahead and understand what nulled themes and plugins basically are.
Nulled Themes and Plugins: Definition
Basically, nulled themes and plugins are the pirated version of the premium licensed themes and plugins from WordPress.
Now, you might be thinking about why people are using pirated versions of themes and plugins? The short and simple answer is that premium plugins are quite expensive. Hence, people look for free alternatives i.e: pirated versions
Each of the premium plugins or themes you find on the internet will definitely have a license. The license makes them reliable. Whereas in the case of nulled WordPress themes and plugins, the original source code is altered to create a pirated version of premium licensed plugins and themes.
Reasons to Avoid Using Nulled WordPress Themes and Plugins
Face Legal Actions
While WordPress is a non-proprietary content management system platform, most of its themes and plugins are open-source. But a few of the plugins and themes are mixed sources which means some part of it is protected by copyright laws. While you use nulled themes and plugins, you don’t have the right or aren’t eligible to use the code and as a result, you may have to face legal actions.
Moreover, usage of pirated plugins and themes can result in lawsuits being filed against you and you may have to pay a huge amount of money to your attorney. Hence, you should refrain from using cracked themes and plugins.
Privacy at Stake
Hacking websites for data theft and stealing is increasing with each passing day. Each day you see numerous news about data breaches and websites getting hacked.
What is common here is the threat actors’ motive to take down websites and fetch users’ confidential information such as their name, address (residential or business), IP addresses, login details, credit card history, etc.
These data will be stolen from a website (e-commerce), the very second you install the nulled plugin or theme. Even the hackers won’t leave any trace of the hack, which makes it more frustrating and challenging.
Endangers Website Security
While you are downloading any of the extensions from external sources (like WordPress.org), there is always a security risk and you are uncertain of what is present inside the code.
For instance; threat actors with their wicked minds may insert malicious links to code thereby negatively impacting the SEO of your website.
These threat actors are so smart that they inject malicious links to the code in such a way that even popular scanners won’t be able to identify them.
Also Read: A Comprehensive Guide to WordPress Password Security
Impact Website’s SEO
Software as a Service Provider follows an impressive marketing strategy where they openly offer embedded software with a backlink to the primary website.
While you use pirated WordPress themes and plugins, you might get spammy links as well.
For the internal users, the websites will be working as usual and don’t know about these links. However, search engines can detect these spammy links and in the worst case, your domain won’t be visible in search engines.
Because of these spammy and solicited links, your will start losing traffic from the search engines and flag your website against various search engines.
Web Hosting Account Ban
Usage of cracked software is restricted by various web hosting companies across the globe. Even ByteNAP doesn’t allow using pirated software on its server.
ByteNAP and some of the other web hosting providers use highly powerful firewalls and antivirus technologies these technologies quarantine the nulled plugin. Hence, using nulled plugin and theme makes it pointless.
Additionally, if the admins find out that you are using a pirated plugin, they will instantly ban your hosting account. Ultimately, it makes your investment in hosting and the SEO effort go down the drain.
Note: ByteNAP offers Secure Managed WordPress Hosting that comes with a 30-day money-back guarantee.
Damage to Business Reputation
You know how much effort and time it takes to establish the business reputation. But with just a few moments of a disaster such as a website hack and data breach, all your business reputation will go down in vain.
Your clients identifying you use Nulled themes and plugins is also severe damage to your business reputation. The news about this can spread like a wildfire and thereby getting your business to halt.
Won’t Receive Updates
When you install Nulled WordPress themes and plugins on your WordPress site, you can’t expect to get updates for it.
As we discussed earlier, WordPress is a widely utilized CMS on the internet. Because of this popularity, the risk of websites getting hacked or exploited is way too high. Additionally, if you have outdated plugins installed on your website, your website becomes vulnerable to attacks. So, it becomes necessary for the developers to roll out updates and patches at regular intervals.
However, to download the updates, you need to have a valid license for the theme or plugin and you will get a license only when you purchase themes or plugins.
Can’t Enjoy New Features
Every major theme and plugin update includes new features which can be a game-changer.
However, when you use nulled WordPress themes and plugins, you not only won’t get the security patch and bug fixes but also the new features.
So, you won’t be able to leverage new features.
Won’t Receive Support
If you use nulled themes and plugins, you won’t receive any support for the plugin or theme you use on your site.
And in today’s date, support is quite important as the developers will help you out whenever you have any issues concerning the themes and plugins. You can contact them, a ticket can be raised, or connect with them via a real-time chatting web app which you can find in the bottom-right of the website.
Additionally, not having tech assistance means you need to manually look for the solution on the internet.
Conclusion
Buying premium plugins at highly cheap pricing looks to be a great deal, however, isn’t worth even the mere money you put in it. Moreover, remember all of the troubles of Nulled WordPress plugin and themes we mentioned above.
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