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About BFT

Every year in the network increases the number of sites saling and servicing website templates. Only a few of them provide users with web templates of their own production, there are even less web sites offering really high quality professional templates.
But even these sites have both positive and negative features. On the pages of BFT, we have tried to provide users with Websites templates reviews of the web-templates industry companies. Information on the BFT based on the study of the specific working characters of these companies themselvesas well as the web templates as a whole. More to it, the BestFreeTemplates.org keeps a constant record of the new websites selling templates. We hope that our resource will be useful to anyone willing to purchase website templates, web designers, companies producers of templates and simply to all who are interested in such kind of business.

Website Templates History The first sites that appeared in the ending of 80-es - beginning of 90-es had very little in common with modern websites. As a rule, they consisted of a header being a site menu and content made in a form of continuous text placed under the header. Later headers became more varied and original, assisted with graphics and photos. "Website design" notion initially meant designing its upper part - header, so the first web templates were just headers. They were inferior ready-made web solutions similar to what website templates are today. Web- development companies were selling the first website templates at token prices. These templates were usually designs of the sites disapproved by their customers. Thus, a new website customer had an opportunity to save on a website development by choosing the Web Design Template he liked.
With time some web-design studios got onto a dedicated development of ready-made website designs. These designs were the first "web templates" in up-to-date understanding of the word.
Today's web templates are full-fledged ready-made solutions that can be used in development of HTML and flash sites. Dozens of all possible categories, designs and use of the latest IT technologies is what characterizes an up-to-date website template. Leading web template developers of the ready-made web solutions are moving on - OS-commerce templates are now being supplied with CMS and can already be used as an operational online shop. Photo-gallery templates are being integrated with content management systems (CMS) that allow their owners to upload photos, create categories/subcategories of the photos, etc.

Advantages of Website Templates There is a myth about website templates being low-grade cheap web solutions for those who simply want to save on their sites. In fact, many of the templates developed by leading web-template developers are made much more professionaly and competently than most of the websites developed by various web-design studios from the ground up.
There are several reasons why buying a ready-made web-template is more preferable than ordering a custom website from web-development companies:
1. Buy what You see
None of the web-design studios can guarantee that customer will like its design. They often develop several versions of a website design and use the one a customer liked most as initial version. But, anyway, it doesn't guarantee that the customer will like any of the versions at all. When buying a website template a customer is offered thousands of ready-made designs classified into categories, web styles and employed technologies. The choice is so huge that it is simply impossible not to find what You need. Thus, buying a web-template You can be absolutely sure that Your website design will be exactly as You wish it to be.
2. Save Your money
Development of a custom website design usually costs dozens of times more than buying a web template. More affordable price is one of the main advantages of website templates that allows saving up to 90% on Your website development.
3. Design originality
According to the research of Netcraft in 2009 the number of sites in Internet exceeded of 230 million. As a rule,during its existance a template is being bought not more than 100 times, about 10 times in average. Hence, the chances of that a visitor will notice the same design used on two or more websites are minor.
Those who consider this fact to have little force are offered templates at unique price. Having purchased a web template at unique price You become the last person to buy this template. After that this template is being withdrawn from sale forever. It is especially profitable to buy web templates at unique price if they have never been bought before. In this case You are a single owner of a unique template. Some web-template developers offer templates at unique prices only: 1 purchase - 1 site.
4. Save Your time
Development of a website ordered in a professional web-studio usually takes from a week up to several months. When buying a ready template You spend time only on choosing a proper template and its customization. Thus, purchasing a web template ensures substantial savings of Your money and time.
5. When website is absolutely free
Have You ever heard of a free custom website development? It is quite real if You deal with web templates. Some web developers offer absolutely free templates. You may download any template that You liked and use it as Your site design according to License agreement. And You don't have to pay for this template now or ever in future. Such web templates are a brilliant solution for blogs, home pages and any other non-commercial websites.

Web Templates Classification 1. Based on manner of acquiring
Free templates - available for free use according to the Terms of Use provided by their developers. They usually have one or several author's links to the site of their developer. Users who download free templates don't have the right to remove these links. There are free templates that have no author's links, but such templates are usually low grade.
Paid templates - are web templates that can be acquired only by purchasing.
2. Based on technologies employed
HTML templates - are web templates made by using HTML technology, without flash animation. There are classic HTML templates and CSS templates. The last ones are even more qualitative and perfect type of HTML templates.
Flash-animated templates - HTML templates that have flash elements, most of all it is animated header.
Full Flash templates- fully animated web templates made by using flash technology. In addition to flash animation (Adobe Flash) they may contain 3D animation (3D Max, Maya) and After Effect-based effects.
E-commerce templates - are web templates specifically made for developing e-shops. In addition to HTML they have E-commerce Module.
Flash-intro - multimedia flash presentations. A header or a flash preloader can be used as animated elements. Technologies used for the development of flash-intros are: Adobe Flash, 3D Max, Maya, After Effect.
Templates that have 3D graphics and animation belog to a separate group of Templates - 3D Templates.
3. Based on Categories
There are many dozenz of various templates' categories. They allow to choose appropriate category for the site of almost any subject-matter. The most popular categories are: Business, Travel, Photo Gallery, Real Estate and others.
4. Based on Style.
To be more precise, this classification is based on styles of the designs that underlie the Templates. There are several dozens of various styles of templates. The most popular of them are: Corporative Style, Minimalistic, Web 2.0, Clean Style, Grunge and others.

How to Select Appropriate Web Template? Are there any visual signs that allow to distinguish a high-grade webtemplate from a primitive one? What should You pay attention to when choosing a webtemplate?
1. Template Design
"High-quality design" and "low-quality design" notions are relative. Those who are not competent in the sphere will hardly estimate template design. In Your mind try to move away template's name and titles of its content blocks. If, in spite of this, its topic remains easy to recognize, it means the template has been done correctly. If the topic is hard to guess and is not well-marked, it degrades template's quality. But, again, this conclusion is superficial.
2. HTML Layout
There is an easy way to check if a template has been laid out qualitatively. Just open it in different browsers and their various versions, click its sections. If a template is being shown equally well in all browsers, it means it has been laid out by experienced specialist. And, if the template looks different in various browsers this is an evidence of a low-grade HTML layout. If You are looking for exactly HTML template, pay attention to CSS templates. CSS is a more perfect type of layout, based on divs, that allows decreasing the volume of HTML code. As a result, CSS templates load much more faster than the standard HTML ones. And againg, it depends on how skillfull was the specialist who laid the template out.

When choosing a template You should also pay attention to the photos that it contains. Specify to its developer if he is authorized to use these photos. Make sure there is no breach of copyright towards the owners of the photos. The same relates to vector images, icons and fonts.

As a rule, self-respecting companies which produce web templates use exclusively licensed images. It's usually indicated on their websites.