Gravatar Checkup: Have You Created Your Gravatar?

By Kyle Eslick on June 3rd, 2008 | Filed Under WordPress
Tag(s): Gravatars

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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There Are 16 Responses So Far. »

1 Remkus
Tuesday, June 3rd, 2008 at 5:02 am

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!
2 Tysen Woodlock
Tuesday, June 3rd, 2008 at 5:24 am

I have mine done. I wish it were possible to have a ‘website Gravatar’ for backlinks.
3 PublicRecordsGuy
Tuesday, June 3rd, 2008 at 11:24 am

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.
4 Kevin Boss
Tuesday, June 3rd, 2008 at 11:35 am

I completely agree. I think Gravatars are a great idea and they are incredibly simple to work with as a developer.
5 Richard H
Tuesday, June 3rd, 2008 at 8:37 pm

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.
6 John Hoff - eVentureBiz
Wednesday, June 4th, 2008 at 9:42 am

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.
7 John Hoff - eVentureBiz
Wednesday, June 4th, 2008 at 9:42 am

sorry, here’s the code I used:
8 Lawrence Salberg
Wednesday, June 4th, 2008 at 11:16 am

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.
9 Ben
Wednesday, June 4th, 2008 at 11:53 am

I didn’t realise I could connect gravatars to other email addresses. Good tip.
10 John Lacey
Friday, June 20th, 2008 at 5:51 am

I wish everybody used Gravatar. Its so good for putting faces to names.
11 emrinho
Saturday, June 21st, 2008 at 6:51 am

I never used a Gravatar but I will google it more and start to use it. Thanks for the useful information.
12 Ibdreamy
Monday, July 14th, 2008 at 2:56 am

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!
13 John Hoff - eVentureBiz
Monday, July 14th, 2008 at 10:39 am

@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.
14 Kyle Eslick
Monday, July 14th, 2008 at 12:05 pm

@ 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!
15 peki
Saturday, August 16th, 2008 at 4:33 am

Great, now I have gravatar.

PQ – Batam