Listed are some of the ways that Wordpress Sponsored Themes are still being allowed on the Wordpress Themes Viewer.
Whether gaming the system is universally possible for everyone, or just "friends" would be very difficult and costly to determine.
2 Comments
Whether gaming the system is universally possible for everyone, or just "friends" would be very difficult and costly to determine.

Comments
Great article, it is just a technicality like you have said, I feel that if you pay a designer to make a theme for you, publish it on your site and offer the support, you should most definitely get the link juice, I cant see any harm in that, its just like designing websites and getting the credit. The sponsorship thing was going a little far though, you could/can get em at DP for like $40 and stuff.
One kind of theme I have seen removed was when 1. Someone had a theme design for years and was constantly asked which theme they were using or how they created it 2. Decided to have a professional designer clean up their theme for release (but it looks the same) 3. Release the theme through the theme viewer 4. Possibly include too many SEO friendly links in the footer 5. Have their theme removed At the same time I know top rated themes that the support site was sold off, and the theme is now being use to provide link juice, and supported by a contractor. With every single point raised I could have pointed to a specific example that remains in the theme directory, and I can also point to examples that should still remain in the theme directory, but the links at the bottom were too SEO friendly for one of the partners.