Did you know that your Gravatar.com account has always been a WordPress.com account? It’s true.
Back in 2007 we (Automattic) acquired Gravatar. Heading into 2008 we rewrote it in PHP, and ever since then, it’s been using the same integrated user system as WordPress.com for accounts. Previously we handled that “behind the scenes,” but we found that it made things pretty confusing for everyone. We’ve now switched over to using WordPress.com Connect exclusively, which allows you to explicitly connect Gravatar and WordPress.com, and to use your WordPress.com credentials to log into Gravatar. That’s one less set of login credentials to worry about!
This is not a real button 🙂
- If you had a Gravatar account before, it’s actually always been a WordPress.com account!
- When you try to log in at Gravatar.com now, you will be asked to do so using WordPress.com Connect.
- Once you’re logged into WordPress.com, you then grant Gravatar access to use your WordPress.com account.
- After that, you’ll use your WordPress.com username and password to log in to Gravatar, for evermore.
You might be wondering about existing accounts and creating new accounts, and what your options are:
- If you have a Gravatar account, it’s actually also a WordPress.com account. You can use those details to log into WordPress.com, then grant access to Gravatar.
- If you already have a WordPress.com account, then you can use that to log into Gravatar.com now.
- If you don’t have a WordPress.com (or Gravatar) account, you can create one for free (no need for a blog, although you can do that also if you like!) and then you can grant access to Gravatar to get started.
The beauty of switching to WordPress.com Connect is that it means your account information is all managed in one, super-secure place (WordPress.com), and it avoids all sorts of complexity and potential for problems with password resets, account activations, and more. We’re in the process of switching all of our services to using WordPress.com Connect, so you can use the same account to log into our other nifty products, including VaultPress, Akismet and Polldaddy.
There’s a bunch more info on the WordPress.com Connect FAQ, which will hopefully help clear up any other questions you have.