Gravatar (Globally Recognized Avatar) is a service that allows you to manage your online avatar and ensure it appears the same across various platforms. It lets you display an avatar image next to your name on WordPress sites.
With years of experience in WordPress, we have seen firsthand the benefits of using Gravatar for both personal and business branding. And in this article, we will discuss what a Gravatar is and why you should start using it right away.
History: Avatar
The term Avatar was borrowed from online gaming communities in the late 90s and early 2000s.
Before that, online forums were mainly text-based communities where users were only identified by their user names.
As these communities grew, it was becoming harder to identify users only by their names.
To solve this, online forums allowed their users to upload an image as their profile photo. They called this an “Avatar” image instead of a profile photo.
The term Avatar refers to an image that represents a person or a user. This image could be their own or any other image they want to use as their profile photo.
As the web and blogging evolved, WordPress blogs faced a similar problem. WordPress comments became the conversation hub for many blogs, and it was harder to identify commenters with just names.
Unlike online forums, where users were required to create an account, WordPress commenters generally didn’t need to make an account to leave a comment.
This is when the Gravatar came in.
Related: See our guide on the History of Blogging.
What Is a Gravatar?
Gravatar stands for Globally Recognized Avatar. It is a popular web service that allows people to create a profile and associate avatar images with their email addresses.
Once you add a Gravatar, it is going to be recognized on all the platforms that come with built-in Gravatar support, including WordPress, Slack, GitHub, Stack Overflow, Atlassian, and more.
This means that when you leave a comment on one of the sites that support Gravatar, it will pull your Globally Recognized Avatar from their servers and showcase it next to your name in the comments and other areas.
For instance, when a user leaves a comment on a WordPress site, their Gravatar is automatically shown next to their comment.
This allows each commenter to have their identity throughout the interwebs.
Why Should I Add Gravatar?
If you are a blogger, non-profit, small business, or anyone wanting to build a brand, you need to start using Gravatar.
A Gravatar allows you to build your identity on the web and build an authoritative voice in your industry.
At first, when you comment on blogs, your Gravatar might not be noticeable immediately.
However, if the same person sees your comment on numerous sites they read, they will probably visit your website.
Some website owners complain that Gravatar slows down their websites, and this is the most cited reason why bloggers choose to disable Gravatar.
Pro tip: See our ultimate guide to speed up WordPress for more performance optimization.
How Can I Get a Gravatar?
You can get a Gravatar by visiting the Gravatar website and signing up for a free account.
It is quite easy to create a Gravatar for your profile.
First, you need to visit the Gravatar website and click on the ‘Get Started Now’ button.
You will now be taken to the signup page.
Here, you must add your email address and click the ‘Continue’ button. Once you do that, you will be sent an email with a verification code. Simply enter that code and click the ‘Continue’ button.
You will now be taken to your Gravatar account dashboard.
Here, click on the ‘Avatars’ tab in the left column to open some new settings.
Once you are there, click the ‘Upload Image’ button in the left column to add a Gravatar image from your computer. You can also take your own picture in real-time by clicking the ‘Use Camera’ button.
We recommend choosing a nice profile picture of yourself or your company logo for the Gravatar. However, if you want to remain anonymous, you can use any other image that represents you.
This will open Gravatar’s image editor, from where you can crop, rotate, zoom, and preview your image.
You can also add filters, and configure the brightness, saturation, and contrast for the image according to your liking. Once you are satisfied, just click the ‘Done’ button at the top.
Your Gravatar has now been set up.
To show this Gravatar on your WordPress site, expand the ‘Verified Accounts’ tab from the left column in the dashboard.
This will open a list of platforms where you can activate your Gravatar. From here, select the ‘WordPress’ option.
This will open some new settings, where you will need to follow the onscreen instructions in the left column to add a Gravatar to your website.
To do this, copy the embed code given in the sidebar and paste it on a published page or post on your website. Once you do that, add the URL of the page under the ‘WordPress URL’ option.
Then, click the ‘Verify Account’ button.
Now, you can try out your Gravatar by leaving a comment on a website or by checking the author profile on your WordPress blog.
This is how our Gravatar looked in the author bio section on a demo site.
Frequently Asked Questions About Gravatars in WordPress
Users often ask us questions about using Gravatar for their own avatar image as well as using Gravatar on their websites.
Following are the answers to the most frequently asked questions about using Gravatar.
1. How do I turn off Gravatar on my WordPress website?
You can turn off Gravatar on your WordPress website by simply visiting the Settings » Discussion page and unchecking the box next to the Avatar Display option.
For more details, see our tutorial on how to disable Gravatar images in WordPress.
2. What happens when a user does not have a Gravatar image?
By default, WordPress will show the mystery man image next to the comments where the comment author does not have a Gravatar image associated with their email address. This is called the default Gravatar image.
You can change this image by visiting the Settings » Discussion page and scrolling down to the Default Avatar section.
From here, you will see several options. Some of them will automatically attempt to generate a unique image using an algorithm based on the user’s name or email address.
3. Can I add more than one image or email address to my Gravatar account?
Yes, you can add multiple images and email addresses to your Gravatar account. However, you can only use one image as your Gravatar for each email address.
4. Can I disable my Gravatar account?
Yes, you can disable your Gravatar account at any time. Simply log in to your account on the Gravatar website and select the ‘Account Settings’ option from the dropdown menu on the right.
This will open a prompt. You must switch to the ‘Security & data’ tab and click the ‘Disable’ button for your account.
Disabling your Gravatar image will stop processing your images, and any websites where you left comments will stop showing your Gravatar image.
We hope this article helped you learn about what Gravatar is and why you should start using it. You may also want to see our tutorial on how to change the default Gravatar in WordPress and our top picks for the best plugins to improve WordPress comments.
If you liked this article, then please subscribe to our YouTube Channel for WordPress video tutorials. You can also find us on Twitter and Facebook.
Ryan
Great article.After reading this, i guess it is time i get a Gravatar.
lee
thanks, great post – exactly the info i was looking for. Hopefully this message has my new gravatar next to it!
Rachel
Just uploaded my gravatar and checking to see if it worked
Zeana Romanovna
Thank you for the informative article. I never knew what they were for but someone told me to get one!
Van
Neat. How do I get this to populate EVERYWHERE? YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, etc…
Editorial Staff
Youtube, Facebook, and Twitter don’t use Gravatar. Most other sites that has comments do though.
Admin
Donny
Just got my 1st Gravatar and seeing if this works when I post?
Andrea
Thanks for the post, great info. Let’s see how it works…
Adam
Thank you for this information. I have been posting as a mystery man for too long!
Flo
I want to use two gravatars, one for a book (it’s a reference book and the gravatar would be the “writer” of the book; the second would be for me writing or blogging as Flo. Would I create two different gravatars and when I’m writing as my alter ego, write from one web address and when I’m writing as Flo, use my regular address?
Editorial Staff
Yes, you would need two different gravatar accounts.
Admin
Lance England
Testing to see if my first Gravatar comment will show up
Steven
I updated my pic to gravatar.
Hope it will work.
Jennifer Minnite
Thank you for explaining in simple terms what a gravatar is!
Annmarie
Oh so that is what “Gravatar” is!! Good to know
Ron
Is there a way to remove the photo class from the avatar images?
I ask this because I suspect it’s conflicting with our the rich snippets results in our theme.
Whenever a recipe has comments, the rich snippet thumbnail disappears from google, if there are no comments, the thumbnail is shown correctly.
See for example:
On of our more popular recipes with lots of comments:
http://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/richsnippets?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.cupcakesenmuffins.nl%2Fcupcake-recepten%2Fbasiscupcakes%2Fbasis-cupcake-recept%2F&html=
A less popular recipe with no comments:
http://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/richsnippets?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.cupcakesenmuffins.nl%2Fcupcake-recepten%2Fluxecupcakes%2Fkoek-en-zopie-cupcakes%2F&html=
This goes for all recipes i checked so far.
I suspect the class=’photo’ in the gravatar is interfering, but i’m no expert. Can anyone of you help?
Thanks,
Ron
Editorial Staff
You would have to filter get_avatar to customize this output. Hopefully that points you in the right direction.
Admin
Ron
Thanks! That did put me in the right direction, Turned out it was’nt the photo class but the v-card was the problem. After removing it from the comments, thumbnails started appearing again on Google!
Edwin
Testing out my new gravatar with one email address…
Robert Pike
Thanks for the help.
Edward
I’m not sure that mine is working.
Editorial Staff
It’s working. Look next to your comment.
Admin
Allen
Learned about Gravatar through Hartl’s Ruby on Rails tutorial. Didn’t know they had this, nice to give it a try!
Siddarth
Useful Info. Although I have been a social media enthusiast for long, I did not consider using gravatar. Now I see the point
sandislo
Great article. Excellent explantation!
Peter Weber
I have tried Gravatar as wll….. let’s see how it works
Helena Dolsak
So let´s see if it works…
Thanks for the post!
Christina
I set up my Gravatar and I’m ready to be noticed. “)
Jim
just set gravatar up and this is the first post to try it out
D James Garcia
Very cool. I’m adding this functionality to my site immediately
Michiel Drenth
I am new to Gravatar and was looking for some info on how to use it. Great post, gave me a lot of useful insights
Chris McQuillan
Is it better to use a photograph (head & shoulders) or would you recommend a logo/graphic for a small company?
Editorial Staff
That depends on your brand
Admin
Joshua Hardwick
Great post! (I think). Now’s the moment of truth to see if following the advice of the post works…
Joshua Hardwick
It did! I see my photo. Thanks Gravatar.
sudoquai
To bad not every site supports Gravatar !
Isaac Lee Yi Hao
I have created a Gravatar account !!!
Signore
one more face to remember
Enamul Hasan Ismail
Yep, Let’s see it in action.
Carmelo Gonzalez
I was not aware of the importance of a gravatar. I thought it was just something aesthetic.
Vicky
This post is really helpful for me. I suggest every one must use Gravatar for better link building.
Dan Hunter
let’s see this in action
kranthi
I created my gravatar profile just after knowing what it does. One of the awsome things that happen to web. ;^]
Alex
One leans something new every day. I have been on the net since 1995 and I had no idea what a gravatar was until I read this.
Duane
Gravatar is great!
As a small business owner & blogger I think its great that Gravatar allows you to add multiple e-mail addresses and to assign different avatars (images) for each within one account (all free). I have my personal photo assigned to my primary e-mail address and my business logo assigned to another e-mail address, thus making it easy to post Blog Comments using either my personal profile or my company logo, as I see fit…
Jim Forde
Very good information. Any one who wants to be found in social media should sign up for gravator.
Kenton Pass
Great article! I had no idea what a gravatar was until I read this. Thanks
Frank Woodman Jr
Thanks for a great article on one of those topics many of us forget to share.
For those that don’t know about Avatars or setting up a gravatar it’s seems a daunting task but as you show it’s really pretty simple. And once done it’s much easier to create a an online identity that’s both constant and easy to use.
David
I like gravatar. I like it a lot. It helps brand you or give you an identity online. But I still need to update my Facebook photo or or Twitter avatar seperately. I think the next step and this would be easier if Facebook or Twitter implemented it, but alas its going to be gravatar is to hook up with both social services and using a Twitter api when you update the profile picture in Twitter, it updates your gravatar picture which then goes across the net. Building an app to connect with Facebook would work well.
I want to see this.
Brady
I’m having issues with my Gravitar not showing up in my own comments on my Wordpress blog (using Thesis theme). Anyone else with a similar problem?
Editorial Staff
If you are using the same email as the one you associate with Gravatar, then it should always show. I have not heard of a single issue like this before. -Syed
Admin
Mattia Frigeri
it works! I didn’t know how to create a gravater before… thanks
Tiny
Look .Gravatar is great.
Soffian
Thanks for the info, I already use mine
Nando
Great post! I first learned of Gravatar when I created my blog, CyanSkies.com on Wordpress three years ago. As you stated, you just set it and forget it! I used my friend’s (DC/Marvel Comics artist Hector Collazo) drawing of me and its been great so far!
David Schneider
I would like to see the live demo of gravatar in action.
Editorial Staff
Look in the comments
Admin
iCoco_de
My only issue with Gravatar (and WordPress) ist that they don’t allow special characters like the underline in icoco_de. So I am forced to register with a different account name that has not much to do with my “real” screen name on almost every other board or platform I visit.
Editorial Staff
Gravatar goes with the email address not username.
Admin
icoco_de
Thank you for making this clear. Yes, I know that my Gravatar is linked to my email address. I also learned that I can set my “display name” to be icoco_de (which I did). But I’d like to “adjust” my profile to “gravatar.com/icoco_de” rather than “gravatar.com/icoco987”. This is what I meant, and this doesn’t seem possible.
Thomaz Fernandes
You forgot to talk about performance.
I did some tests and here’s the result:
Post without Gravatar: Page Speed Score: 89/100.
Post using Gravatar: Page Speed Score: 68/100.
So, how to use Gravatar without loosing performance?
Gautam Doddamani
i remember when i first got my gravatar it was around 2 years back. still haven’t changed it. when u r a blogger and comment a lot on other sites you should definitely get a gravatar which is used by wordpress and other cms for displaying avatars.