WordPress uses Gravatars as the default avatar for all the profiles on your website. However, you are being here tells us that you want to remove Gravatar from WordPress website.
In this article we will guide you on how to remove profile picture WordPress offer by default.
The main reason to disable Gravatar in WordPress is to achieve better website speed. As long as you have disabled the comment section, you will not see much slowdown. However, on websites with active comment sections, the slow loading speed is very noticeable.
WordPress takes the user email to apply the MD5 Hash and creates src to gravatar.com image tag for each comment. When you load the page on your browser, it sends a request to the Gravatar server for each embedded image in the comments. The server check records for hashed email. If the email address is registered at gravatar.com, the server responds with the corresponding image. If it doesn't exist, it redirects to the default image.
WordPress comments contain a unique image that points to a unique URL on gravatar.com. This means every word on a page attempts an additional HTTP request for avatar whether the email is registered on Gravatar or not. If the user is not registered at gravatar.com, their image request redirects to the default WordPress avatar, making another HTTP request.
In short, the more HTTP requests you have on your webpage or posts, the more time it takes a browser to load the images.
Removing WordPress Gravatars is simple and easy. There are two options first using Discussion option in WordPress settings, and the second is via Plugin.
Keep in mind that disabling Gravatar in WordPress will not just affect the comments section on your website; this will also remove gravatar images from the admin bar.
Please follow the following simple steps to remove Gravatar in WordPress setting.
Click on “Settings” menu on the left-side in Admin panel.
Now click on the “Discussion” option. This will open page settings on the right-side.
Scroll down to the bottom of the page to locate “Avatar Display” and Uncheck the box.
Click on “Save” button and you are done.
Congratulations, you've successfully disabled the Gravatars in your WordPress website.
Please follow the following steps to disable Gravatar using WordPress plugin.
You can find the plugin option on the left-side of Admin panel.
This will open a page where you can either upload a custom plugin or install automatically from WordPress Plugin Directory.
Now search for the plugin “Disable User Gravatar”.
Click on “Install” button and then “Activate”
That's it; you are done. Now go to the discussion page to choose a custom default Avatar for your WordPress users.
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