The first time you see the backend of your WordPress website it can be a bit daunting. There is a lot of information and a lot of options that are thrown at you with very little explanation. Over time as you get more comfortable with the software you will undoubtedly begin to explore more and one of the things that you will find is that when it comes to themes you have a lot of options.
Themes, Themes And More Themes
Theme selection is important for your website. The theme controls the layout of your website and how easy it is to customize it. Some themes are easier to work with than others and some themes are better at working with certain kinds of sites (like ecommerce sites or blog sites) than others. Not all themes are created equally.
But when it comes to your themes you may see some others already there. A numbered theme will be there and how many of them you have depends on how long your site has been on the WordPress platform. These are default themes and you may wonder just what purpose they serve and why you might need them?
From One Theme To Many
When WordPress was originally created in 2003 there was only one theme available, the WordPress Classic Theme. The first theme option available to the user base was called Kubrick and one of the options that were added with version 1.5 was the ability to change themes in 2005. Kubrick became the default theme until WordPress 3 was released in 2010 with the Twenty Ten theme included. Since then a new default theme has been released every year except for 2018, which did not see a release due to the extensive work that went into WordPress 5. Twenty Twenty was released in late 2019.
The WordPress Classic Theme can still be found on the web, despite it not having been updated since 2010. More than 20,000 websites still use this theme and people are still downloading it even today. Fewer people use Kubrick today, with only around 600 active installations.
Twenty Ten served as the model for many future WordPress themes and became at least the default model for blog sites with a prominent header and a clean and minimal design that focuses on content. Over 100,000 websites still use this theme even today.
What Are Default Themes For?
The easiest way to explain these is that WordPress comes with a default theme so that something can be displayed on the front-end of the website, that is when someone visits the site something will be there. This can help to at least lay a foundation for the SEO for the site and it lets the visitor know that they are at least at the right place, even if a maintenance screen is up. Default themes can be replaced at any time by the user. This default theme also is intended to showcase new features and can be used to at least create basic websites.
This theme also serves as a fallback option for you. Bad things can happen and a theme can be deleted or something can go wrong with it. WordPress will then fallback on the default theme so that at least basic functionality of the site can be maintained. It may not be perfect but it is better than a message saying that the site is down.
These themes also have one other major benefit for someone who is getting started with web development or is just getting their business off of the ground and that is that these default themes are free to use. You can’t beat free when it comes to the price and if you don’t need a lot of the bells and whistles one of these default themes may be just what you are looking for.
Theme selection is important and there are a lot of them out there to choose from. At Nicely Done Sites we can help you with this. Depending on what you want your site to do one of these default themes may work and if you choose to go with another you will have a fallback in case something goes wrong.