We need to understand what is an Avatar first. It will then be easy for us to understand about Gravatar. Hence, let’s discuss both of these briefly.

What is an Avatar?

An ‘avatar’ is an image that represents you, that displays next to your name whenever you interact with websites. This could be a photograph, a cartoon, an illustration, etc.

What is Gravatar?

A Gravatar is a Globally Recognized Avatar. It refers to those avatars or small-sized icons or images that come just beside the name of blog commentators, forum posters and so on.

Instead of having a different avatar for each website where you post a comment and participate in the discussion, Gravatar allows you to set up a globally recognized avatar. First, this service was created by Tom Preston-Werner, but later in 2007, Automattic acquired it and began using for WordPress-related Projects.

Similarly, it is connected to your email address. Once you register a free account, the services will let you upload a picture that you want to use as your avatar.

How to set up Gravatar in WordPress:

1. Go to Gravatar Website.
2. There you can find WordPress.com with sign-in button. Click that button
3. Sign-in using wordpress.com credentials or signup for new WordPress.com account which is totally free.
4. Click on login
5. Once you logged in, you will have to approve Gravatar to use your WordPress.com account.
6. There it offers four options: Upload new, From URL, Past Uploads and from the webcam.
7. Click on Upload New to add your new first Image.

Why You Should use Gravatar?

Nowadays, having a Gravatar account would definitely be beneficial. If you want to be identified on the web, then it is the best solution for you. This helps you to show your profile image in every WordPress site when you post comments and post. This is helpful for both administrator and user of the site. This helps to maintain a unique identity.

When a person reads comments left by a user with a blank avatar, they are less likely to believe what the user wrote. So it helps people to believe a comment or post with Gravatar image.

Some of the other articles related to WordPress Basics:-

How to Turn Off Comments Notifications in WordPress
Check for WordPress Security Updates?
 Easily Deactivate WordPress Plugins

Article By Shyam Kumar Bhandari

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