Astra Theme Penalised Effecting Over One Million!

You may have heard that the Wordpress theme Astra is going through some issues. Basically Wordpress.org have removed the theme from the wordpress depositry for 5 weeks.

Why?

Well basically the theme had affiliate links within a plugin (rakuten), affiliate links are prohibited for premium themes. Astra argued that there wernt direct links within the source code and it was links that were attacthed to third party plugins.

What will Hapen?

There has been a 5 week penalty enforced on the themes authors, this means that all updates will need to be done via github or the actual Astra homepage. Its uncertain if there will be any SEO pentalitys, but if you do run Astra - either free or premium, be vigialante and keep an eye on your analitics tools and also any manual updates that may be done.

Plugins & Themes

This is a rare occorunce, nearly all themes are complient and plugins also, but its important to use trusted themes. Always research about the theme and its maybe best to go with a higher rated and seasoned theme rather than a new one.

Its good practice to avoid plugins as much as possible, WA advise to keep this below 5 on the site health, it makes sense. When i first started out, i loved added plugins, but they can be quite detrimental and add bloat.

Additionally, you may never know if a theme or plugin will " pull the plug". In your Wordpress dashboard you will see site health, its reccomened to have a back up theme installed as a precaucionary measure.

Good luck!