Kim Avery Coaching

Avoiding “Mr. Anonymous” in the Comments

by | 0 comments

gravatar-exampleIf you have ever looked at the comments on a blog post and seen that some of them have a real picture by the name and some have “Mr. Anonymous,” you may have wondered why. Mr. Anonymous is the default image that WordPress puts next to someone’s name if they have not set up a “Gravatar.” You can swap out the default for some other options, and we’ll look at those a bit later.

But first… What is a Gravatar?

Gravatar (Globally Recognized Avatar) is a service provided by the fine folks who developed WordPress. When you sign up, you can upload a profile image and link your email address to it. More than one email address? No problemo. You can link as many as you want. AND, if you want different profile pictures to go with different email addresses, you can do that, too.

And the best part? It is FREE.

You can sign up here: www.gravatar.com.

Why Would I Want a Gravatar?

What’s nice about a Gravatar is that wherever you use a linked email address on the web, your profile picture will show up. So when you comment on somebody else’s blog, your image will show up instead of Mr. Anonymous. It helps promote your brand.

But suppose you have widely differing interests and don’t want to mix your branding? Gravatar lets you add multiple profile pictures and link them to separate email addresses. So you can have one image for your professional email and a separate image for your personal email if you want.

Getting Rid of Mr. Anonymous

gravatar-optionsIf you have a WordPress blog and you don’t particularly care for Mr. Anonymous, you can change out the default image that shows up for those who do not have a Gravatar.

From your WordPress dashboard, go to Settings > Discussion, and scroll down near the bottom of the page. There you will see the options that WordPress provides for you to choose from. Choose any of them, and Mr. Anonymous turns into something different. And, of course, there are plugins you can add that will give you some fancier setting, but that is beyond the scope of this post.

Show Us Yours!

If you have a Gravatar, leave us a comment so we can see it. And if you don’t already have one, go get one and come back and test it out!

0 Comments