How to Disable Gravatar or Cache and Accelerate Gravatar Avatars in WordPress

Any website built with WordPress uses Gravatar avatars. Gravatar is a globally public avatar system. Once you set a Gravatar avatar, it will automatically display on any website that supports the Gravatar system. However, if your server is located in China, loading too many Gravatar avatars can slow down your website. The reason is that Gravatar server access speed is not ideal within China. Therefore, to speed up WordPress, it is necessary for websites built on domestic servers to disable Gravatar avatars or cache Gravatar avatars.

Disabling Gravatar Avatars in WordPress

Disabling Gravatar avatars is very convenient. If your blog has a large number of comments, it is recommended to disable them, as too many avatar images can also slow down your website speed. The disabling method is as follows: 1. In the WordPress Admin Dashboard, select Settings, then Discussion settings. 2. Uncheck the box for displaying avatars, and you will completely disable the Gravatar avatar function in WordPress.

Cache Gravatar Avatars

Of course, if you have completely disabled Gravatar avatars and find the comment box unattractive, we can accelerate by caching Gravatar avatars. By caching Gravatar avatars on the local server, users will load avatars from your server, which will be much faster. There are code versions online for caching Gravatar avatars, but many are outdated and not effective for every Theme. Beginners might not know how to modify them, so here are two recommended Plugins for caching.Gravatar Caching Plugin One: Harrys Gravatar CachePlugin download address: https://wordpress.org/plugins/harrys-gravatar-cache/Gravatar Caching Plugin Two: FV Gravatar CachePlugin download address: https://wordpress.org/plugins/fv-gravatar-cache/ Using a Plugin for caching is very simple: install the Plugin, activate it, and configure the settings. If you are usingHummingbirdthis optimization Plugin, it also supports avatar caching. Finally, if you have enabled Gravatar avatars, some Themes do not add ALT descriptions to avatars by default. You can modify the code yourself to add them, which is more SEO-friendly. Method:Add ALT Attribute to Gravatar Avatar Images in WordPress Comments