The avatar function for normal off-site links works fine.
Just a few things to remember...
Google image links go through a third party, the same with ninemsn. This forum is unable to link to google search images.
Photobucket works well but is not exclusively required. Its just one of the many image web hosting companies which are available.
Image URLs should start with
(letters are lower case) and there should be no space between the URL path and the codes.
When pasting image URLs into your profile, make sure they end in .jpg or .gif and that they are not too large in [u]kilobytes[/u].
Sometimes the web host who has your image may go offline and this will leave a broken link.
In some cases (rarely), the web host may change your image without your knowledge. We can't control that.
Hope that clears things up a little more.