In reply to Nate Wright.

This whole affiliate situation has been getting worse and worse every year. I've never done affiliates for Theme Hybrid. I've always wanted true word-of-mouth advertising. But, it's been harder and harder to rank against all these "top X WordPress themes" posts. From a business perspective, I've thought many times about going the affiliate route just to get mentioned in them.

The sad thing is that I regularly have people contact me about getting put into these lists if I'll provide them with an affiliate link. When I tell them I don't do affiliates, my themes don't get mentioned and I never hear from them again.

If I hadn't launched Theme Hybrid so early on, I don't think I would've ever been competitive without affiliates. It's a brutal game, one that has launched theme shops like ThemeForest to the top. I am happy with anything search engine providers do to put a stop to it. Maybe we can get back to competing on quality.