WordPress removes Astra theme from repository for policy violation

While we do know that most of the people that are into blogging use WordPress as a platform, it is also true that these users are more likely to use a paid theme than a free one because it just gives you so much better flexibility, design as well as user interface which is not present in most free WordPress themes. The reason why we wrote most and not all is that there are few themes such as WP Astra as well as GeneratePress that offer you a great experience with a simple design for free.

However, the catch here is that these themes also make you want to buy their premium version in order to get the most out of these themes. Having said that, none of these themes are lacking in functionality with the free version as well so you are safe on that front.

But somewhat of a shockwave was sent across the WordPress community and users of the Astra community since the theme was removed from WordPress’s directory which maintains the list of free themes and plugins. The reason behind this, as explained by WordPress, is that Astra theme had included their affiliate links inside the submission which is totally not allowed as per their rules.

An explanation from WordPress.org directly towards the developers of Astra theme says that “Themes are not allowed to have affiliate URLs or links”.

We added this requirement more than 18 months ago, specifically for this kind of issue.

We also asked other theme authors to remove such links from their themes and discussed this topic, on Slack & the blog, for many weeks.

We don’t understand how you can miss something like this, and it’s also not the first time we have to come and tell you something is wrong with your theme.

Because of this, your theme will be suspended for the next 5 weeks (until September 11th, 2020).”