Dateless Mini-Site WordPress Themes
Here’s the result of my quest to create a very stripped down free WordPress theme for use with niche blogs and other ‘no frills’ WordPress sites: Dateless Mini-Site WordPress Themes Demo Site. This is a not just a single theme but a set of seven different themes built around the same basic, very stripped down, PHP code and stylesheet.
Here are some screenshots of the themes:
Blue Mini-Site Theme
Red Mini-Site Theme
Black Mini-Site Theme
Green Mini-Site Theme
Pure Blue Mini-Site Theme
Memo Mini-Site Theme
News Mini-Site Theme
On the demo page I have a theme switcher plugin installed so that you can switch between themes easily. There is also a download link on the sidebar of the demo but if you want to download from here: Dateless Mini-Site WordPress Themes.
Why No Date?
Each of these themes has had the dates removed from every location they normally appear. The only exception is in the date related widgets, such as Archive, but if you don’t use them, they won’t show up at all. Even with Archive, you’ll only see the date in the sidebar widget, not in the search results. But, why wouldn’t you want a date on a blog?
For niche blogs with timeless content the date is a distraction. By not having a date it makes your information look fresher to the visitor and makes them more open to it and to your advertising. The stripped down nature of these themes make them a natural match for content that is valuable but doesn’t change that often.
The Problem With Tags
I did run into one small problem with the theme and that’s the way tags work in WordPress. You can’t change the style of tags displayed via widgets with the stylesheet. This means that longer tags will overrun the sidebar and possibly break the browser display. The best way I found around this was to use a tags widget plugin that was more flexible. If you have an alternative to this that uses the built-in WordPress Tags widget, please leave a comment and let me know about it.
Give Them a Try
Try out these themes and let me know what you think. If you have any changes or customizations you would like to make to one of them and need some assistance, let me know and we’ll see what we can work out.
- Other Interesting OpTempo Articles...
- Cheesecake Recipes
- Dazzle Video Creator Platinum Review
- Do You Have "Googlenoia"?
- Blog Review: Josh Dockery
- My 5 Biggest Blogging Mistakes
- Got Lemonade?










Great job Frank. I’ll definately be using these in the near future.
dave
Looks like they would be great for adsense websites!
Thanks Frank - I will definitly being using these!
Very nice Frank. Thanks a lot!
Thanks so much for creating these site templates. I do love the dateless versions of templates and they will work well with my site project plans for the future. Knowing the date when a writer writes an article is, in some ways, useless information, at least, that’s what I think…. Excellent work Frank! Vera Z.
Hi Vera,
For an info site where the information is timeless the date isn’t important at all. It’s more like a book.
However, on sites that follow trends you need a date. They’re more like a newspaper or weekly magazine.
Great wordpress themes. You make a great point in that a simple theme for you blog/site is much better than cluttering it with too much stuff. When you have a simple design, people are more attracted to the content than what else is on the page.
Hi Michael,
Either your content or your inline advertising.
Frank,
Well done once again. I’ll definately add these to my theme collection.
gotafish
I have finally found a template that will go great with my mini niche sites. Thanks Frank!
I am going to be using all of them. I just put one up on one of my mini-sites. I had a regular wordpress blog on it but it looked to over powering for the niche I was working. These are nice and simple looking but have a lot of nice perks.
Nice work!
themes are really awesome, i’ll try ‘Green Mini-Site Theme’.
Yeah..some themes to look into for a change. Thanks!
These are great themes and much “prettier” than the sniper themes that Court was giving out. (he had 2 I think that we the same basically)
You are the man, Frank!
AL
Hey Frank, very nice themes. I’ve just downloaded them and will spend a little time to see whats what. Always curious to see someone else’s css! Thanks man!
Really good. I like the orange and blue one. Very good use of space above the fold.
These are excellent for those who are still novice to web design. It allows them to write all the content they want and be able to display it well knowing little or no web design. That’s the great thing about wordpress.. anyone who can figure out the UI can use it.
-Jason
Very well good job the pure blue theme is the best the others are good too
Nice theme. But i found some bugs with long links.
They look very clean and simple, just perfect for a quick blogger. I’m happy with what I see so far, and the date/time function isn’t an issue at all.
I like these alot. I have seen and used Court’s Dateless Sniper, but so has everybody else. This gives us more variety. Wish there were more of these “dateless” themes. Are you working on any more templates. I think they are great. Thanks lots.
Hi ‘Collagen’,
I’ve got some more in the works that are related to these themes.
Hi Frank,
Sounds good. I am looking forward to seeing them.
I will keep checking back to see them.
Thanks
Emir:)
Frank its late - I’ve lost the plot - I love the themes but I can for the bloody life of me figure out where I should be putting the large Adsense ad front and centre: which file do I hack or should I use some plugin. Please don’t say openx - I’ve decided that I will be forever be smartpriced so openx isn’t really worth it!
Lissie
Hi Lissie,
I probably need to add an Adsense section to this set of themes. I’ll probably do that soon. But, for now, check out this post in the demo site: http://demominisite.optempo.com/low-interest-debt-consolidation-loans/
You can insert a <div> like this into the post, probably after the -more- tag, to put an Adsense block into the post.
<div style="width: 360px; height: 280px; float: left; display: inline; background-color: #000; padding-right: 0px; padding-left: 0px; margin-bottom: 5px; padding-bottom: 0px; margin-right: 5px; padding-top: 0px; color: #fff">your adsense code here</div>You may want to change the colors though to match.
These are a great addition to anyone looking to move their domain names from a parking program and want to develop the names themselves without having to do any serious coding. Thanks Frank and keep the themes coming.
hey man i love your site.. your friend michael told me you were looking for a new way to earn some extra income online.
i own an awesome website where you can make money online..most our users are making like 20-50 bucks a day.. with minimal work.. its pretty simple to do.. its actually so easy to do you won’t believe ill actually pay you to do it.. and its 100% free to sign up and try. All you have to do is spam people’s comments like I’m doing. Wow! How easy is that!
another positive about my site unlike all the other sites.. i will pay you out daily.. so you earn 5 bucks in the first 5 minutes you work on my site.. request a payout and i will pay you out right then.. i guarantee no other sites like mine will pay out daily multiple times.. And if you believe that one I have some nice beachfront property in Arizona to sell you.
i’d be glad to
rip you offhelp you.. if you sign up..I like the 5th theme. Because i love blue.
thanks.
They are rather simple, but look suitable for small niche Adsense sites.
Nice set of themes, i was looking for a starting point to build eBay niche sites from (like BANS), these served as more than a great starting point. You saved me a whole bunch of hassle and i thank you for that.
honestly I prefer 50% 50% for body and sidebar magnitude ….
Hi Brandon,
I’m working on some variations to these themes so I’ll add a 50/50 one to the list.
Nice set of simple themes. I have a ton of undeveloped domains so I’m planning on adding blogs to them offset their annual cost. These would work well and save me the time of creating my own simple themes.
Just want to let everyone know about a great Website Design company.
I was a sceptical because of the price, but boy did they deliver for about
$200 they did the most amazing work for me. I just wanted to pass that along to
you guys.
you can check them out at: I am a spamming idiot who got my links deleted and my IP added to the blocked spammers list
Thanks for sharing. The themes look nice and clean and very professional. I never thought about not having a date or time there and it makes sense. I’ll consider using one.
[…] Minima template. I have several examples I did a while back that are available on OpTempo: Dateless Minisite Themes, Boring Memo Theme, Blogger eBay Minima Theme. A few others from other people I recommend include: […]
Thanks for putting these together. I am finding that recently I have been going into the post.php file and removing the date from the blogs I’ve been building. If you want them to look more like static sites, this is the way to go. These will save me some time on some! Thanks again.
Thanks for creating thesevFrank.
Crappy WP themes make me angry!
These look great Frank.
Hi Frank,
Just getting around to using these templates. I would, however, like to have the content take up the whole width of the page, then have all my widgets at the bottom. Is there an easy way to do that?
Steve
Hi Steve,
I have an updated version of these themes that do this on my other blog: Info Magazine WordPress Theme.
I’m using your blue dateless memo style theme on two of my money sites. It really makes the AdSense pop out of the page and say “click me.” Very nice. Will try out the Dateless Magazine style themes soon.
Just downloaded the blue theme for my new insurance site. Thanks!
Frank,
Great site and gorgeous theme.. I love all of them. Nice work!
These are fantastic - thank you! I’ve just installed the ‘News’ one on my new adsense blog - it has a nice uncluttered look & draws attention to the ads very well.
BTW - I checked it in IE 8, & the footer is wonky - there’s an extra bit underneath that is pushed over to the left of the page.
[…] Dateless Mini - Frank’s boringly timeless theme […]
Hi, great themes, I am just playing around with them and would like to know what is the best way to remove all reference to the comments. Not only just to close the comments, I would also like to remove “Sorry, the comment form is closed at this time.” “RSS feed for comments on this post.” and the like, thanks for your help, SY
These can be removed by editing the theme.
When I get the time I’ll do an updated version of these themes that have a comment on/off function built in since several people have asked about this.
nice layout,
nice and clean design
will try them
thank you