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Gravatar Checkup: Have You Created Your Gravatar?

By | Filed Under WordPress

300x250 Gravatar Checkup: Have You Created Your Gravatar?

Wow, it seems like it was just recently, but a quick search through our archives shows that it has already been four full months since I began my campaign to get people to support Gravatars on their WordPress blogs.

That post was originally written shortly after Automattic acquired Gravatar and most WordPress bloggers were still using the MyAvatars plugin (which displays MyBlogLog avatars).   I always enjoyed the MyAvatars plugin, but felt that it was important to show your support for WordPress by displaying Gravatars.   That was about the time that this blog switched to Gravatars and hasn’t looked back (we’ve even gone as far as to integrate them into the recent comments in the sidebar).

In the last six months since Automattic acquired Gravatar, it has already come a long way.  Gravatars load a lot faster now and people using the WordPress 2.5 branch (or using WordPress.com) now have built-in Gravatar support.   In other words, there has never been a better time to have a Gravatar and place Gravatars on your WordPress blog.

Sadly, a quick glance at the Recent Comments section in our sidebar often shows a number of comments left by people without a Gravatar.  If this sounds like it might be you, I recommend you register your free Gravatar account.  It is really quick and easy!

I maintain a few Gravatar accounts (one for each website email address) so no matter what email address I use in my comment, an appropriate Gravatar should appear next to my comment.   If you have several websites, you may want to consider setting up a few accounts so you are covered in any situation.

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    • Kyle Eslick is WordPress enthusiast who took his passion for WordPress to the next level in 2007 by launching WPHacks.com as a place to share hacks, tutorials, etc. Connect with Kyle on Twitter or Google+!

    There Are 16 Responses So Far »

    • http://www.idimensie.nl Remkus

      Why make different accounts? You can just make one account and as different email addresses to it with according (different) gravatars…

      But yes.. the (blog)world is a better place with Gravatars. I need to add them to all my blogs as well!

    • http://tjwoodlock.com/blog/ Tysen Woodlock

      I have mine done. I wish it were possible to have a ‘website Gravatar’ for backlinks.

    • http://www.publicrecordsguy.com PublicRecordsGuy

      I couldn’t agree more. When I first saw Gravatars I thought to myself, “What an incredible Branding idea.” Some people though, don’t actually associate it with their websites, or BRAND. So I think they could be missing one of the nice benefits of it. I think we should change the “default” no gravatar image to something that has the Text attached to it, “I’m Not Web Savvy Yet” or “I’m behind the Gravatar Movement”, etc.

    • http://kevinboss.net Kevin Boss

      I completely agree. I think Gravatars are a great idea and they are incredibly simple to work with as a developer.

    • http://www.wpproject.com Richard H

      I love the Gravatar concept and think it’s good for our readers too. Most people like to see their name or picture (or Gravatar) when they leave their tracks behind.

      When a study is done (hint) I think we’ll find Gravatars improve, at least to some degree, our readership and number of comments left, among other things.

    • http://www.eventurebiz.com John Hoff – eVentureBiz

      I can’t for the life of me get mine to work. I installed a plugin a while back and it didn’t work.

      I’ve also tried inserting this line in my comments.php but it didn’t work and my comments and sidebar disappeared.

      Do you offer any help or know how I can get this working?

      Thanks.

    • http://www.eventurebiz.com John Hoff – eVentureBiz

      sorry, here’s the code I used:

    • http://www.salberg.org Lawrence Salberg

      Thanks for fighting the good fight about this. It’s the one thing that makes comments readable as a thread – without resorting to actual forum-like threading. I rarely read comments on blogs without Gravatars (or something similar) since it’s confusing to follow who is saying what.

      I also too recently wrote an evangelical clarion call to get everyone on board to use Gravatars. I called it A Dozen Dirty Reasons to Get a Gravatar and tried to make it a bit humorous. I have no idea, looking back, why I thought the reasons were dirty… just a play on words and the movie, but if anyone is still giving you flack about getting a Gravatar, maybe there will be a reason in there you can steal and use to help get them on board.

      Thanks for the info on WP 2.5 already having this functionality built in. I had no idea. I’ll give it a try and maybe ditch the plugin.

      Keep on keepin’ on, bro.

    • http://www.benlocker.com Ben

      I didn’t realise I could connect gravatars to other email addresses. Good tip.

    • Pingback: WordPress Weekend Resources - June 6, 2008 | Theme Lab

    • http://blog.johnlacey.net John Lacey

      I wish everybody used Gravatar. Its so good for putting faces to names.

    • emrinho

      I never used a Gravatar but I will google it more and start to use it. Thanks for the useful information.

    • http://www.divageekdesigns.com/ Ibdreamy

      I love Gravatar but for some reason I’ve had some trouble implementing it into some of my themes even with the plugin.
      Maybe I’m doing something wrong eh I’ll figure it out no worries..basically Thanx for the post more people need to be add one. I hope mine works or I’m gonna look like an ass. LOL!

    • http://eventurebiz.com John Hoff – eVentureBiz

      @Ibdreamy – I had the same problem. For some reason, my template rejected gravatars. But then I found one which a guy customized a little so I gave it a try and voala! I have gravatars now. Here’s the link:

      Filosofo’s Gravatar Plugin.

      Good luck.

    • http://kyleeslick.com Kyle Eslick

      @ John – Thanks for pointing out that plugin!

      @ Ibdreamy – If you are comfortable inserting code, you can use the code in this post to add Gravatars to your comments.php file.

      Good luck!

    • http://www.gravatar.com/avatar/5d61a34fd6cc7bfc81e2c266a123624e?s=80 peki

      Great, now I have gravatar.

      PQ – Batam

    • http://www.dabuzzing.org/ Minna (minja)

      I’m a bit late to this party. My blog has plenty of gravatars and I like ‘em! My question is how to host them so that the browser doesn’t first hit gravatar.com and then redirect to my blog to supply the default avatar. About the only errors I have on Google Page Speed relate to these gravatars: “Resources have identical contents, but are served from different URLs.” How could it be otherwise? The browser first has to check if the user has a gravatar and then supply my default one if needed. Do you have a solution?