gravatars

Gravatar stands for Globally Recognized Avatar. It is a service provided by Automattic, the company behind WordPress.com. A Gravatar is a digital image that follows you from website to website, showing up next to your name when you post comments or write articles on participating sites.

Users create a Gravatar by uploading an image and linking it to their email address. When you leave a comment on a website that supports Gravatar, the system checks the email address you provided. If that email address is associated with a Gravatar, the image is displayed alongside your comment. This allows for a consistent visual representation of users across the internet.

The service is free to use and is designed to enhance user experience and community interaction on blogs and websites. It helps to personalize online identities and distinguish users from one another. Websites that integrate with Gravatar benefit from having pre-set user images, saving them the effort of hosting and managing individual avatar uploads.