Why Is Gravatar Still Being Requested?

If you have disabled Gravatar in Molongui Authorship but still see requests to Gravatar, the request may be coming from WordPress itself, your theme, another plugin, or a cached page.

This guide helps you identify where the request is coming from.

1. Make sure Gravatar is disabled in Molongui Authorship

1. Go to Authors > Settings.
2. Open the General tab.
3. Find the Author Avatar Settings section.
4. Make sure Use Gravatar for author avatars is disabled.
5. Save the settings.

When this option is disabled, Molongui Authorship removes Gravatar from its own avatar resolution process.

2. Clear your caches

If your site uses page caching, object caching, a CDN, or browser caching, you may still be seeing HTML generated before Gravatar was disabled.

Clear all relevant caches and reload the page before testing again.

3. Check whether WordPress is requesting Gravatar elsewhere

Molongui Authorship can disable Gravatar for the avatars it manages, but WordPress core or other parts of your site may still call the WordPress avatar functions independently.

Examples may include:

• Comment author avatars.
• The WordPress admin bar.
• User lists or profile screens.
• Theme templates that call WordPress avatar functions directly.
• Other plugins that display user avatars.

If the request appears outside a Molongui Authorship component, it may not be generated by Molongui Authorship.

4. Check your theme and other plugins

Another plugin or your active theme may request Gravatar independently.

Temporarily disabling other avatar-related plugins or switching to a default WordPress theme can help identify whether another component is responsible.

5. Check the actual request URL

Open your browser’s developer tools and inspect the Network panel while reloading the page.

Look for requests to domains such as:

• gravatar.com
• secure.gravatar.com

Then inspect which page element or script initiated the request.

6. Check where the avatar is displayed

If the Gravatar request is associated with an Author Box, author list, Guest Author, or another Molongui Authorship component, verify that Gravatar is disabled under Authors > Settings > General.

If the request comes from a completely different part of WordPress, the Molongui Authorship setting may not control it.

7. Remember that the WordPress Default Avatar is part of the Gravatar flow

The Default Avatar configured under Settings > Discussion is normally delivered through the WordPress/Gravatar avatar system.

When Gravatar is disabled in Molongui Authorship, Molongui author avatars do not use that fallback.

However, other WordPress components may still use it independently.

Still seeing Gravatar requests?

Check the following:

• Gravatar is disabled under Authors > Settings > General.
• All caches have been cleared.
• The request is actually coming from a Molongui Authorship component.
• Your theme is not requesting Gravatar directly.
• Another plugin is not displaying WordPress or comment avatars.

If the request persists, identifying the element that initiated it in the browser’s Network panel is usually the fastest way to determine which component is responsible.