I wouldn’t have been writing this post, if I didn’t myself face the terrible problem with my own Google Authorship. I had implemented Google Authorhip on my own blog, and hoped that my profile photo will appear very soon in the SERP, but unfortunately that didn’t happen. I started checking every day, but unfortunately the profile photo didn’t appear in the SERPs.

After a long two months time, the profile photo ultimately came up. I was quite happy with it but it wouldn’t have happened if I didn’t research about the problem and do my best to solve it. When my profile picture was not appearing, I was quite disturbed, and tried all possible ways to get it displayed in the SERPs. In this situation, I found some reasons and and also some solutions to the problem of why the Google+ profile photo doesn’t appear in the search results page.

In this article, I would like to share these possible reasons with you, so that if you too are facing this problem, you can quickly rectify it or if not, then you must know these reasons, so that in the future you never move on to make these mistakes that can prevent your Google Plus profile photo to appear in the SERPs.

1) Abstract Photos

Don’t use an abstract photo as your profile picture. I assure you that doing this will never get your profile photo appear in the SERPs. If you use something like a photo of your pet dog, a snap of your “home sweet home”, or a picture of your summer vacation trip, then get assured, that you have very little chances of your profile photo to appear in the SERPs.

Google will never want to show a photo of your dog, or a mountain view, in the SERPs, which is completely irrelevant. Will these kind of photo’s help the Googler’s in any way? Will it show any information about the real author of the article? Not at all, and I hope you will agree with me.

An example of abstract profile photo in Google+

2) Celebrity or Sportstar Photos

Now, this is a common trend among us to use our favorite celebrities or sportstar’s photo in our profile. But this will probably not get our profile photo visible in the search results page. Like using “Angelina Jolie” or “Roger Federer’s” photo in the profile, will not help you in any way to get your countenance hooked up in the SERPs.

You can ask yourself this question? Will this be helpful in any way to the Googler’s if they see Angelina Jolie’s photo instead of your own, in the SERPs. Google wants to show the author’s headshot to the Googler’s so that it helps them to know who actually is behind writing a particular article, before even clicking on it.

So, use your own photo in the profile, if you want to get it visible in the SERPs.

3) Cartoon or Avatar Photos

We sometimes, get back to our childhood days when we loved cartoons more than anything, and thereby put a cartoonized avatar of your real photo as your Google+ profile photo. There are many sites, where you can upload your real photo to get a cartoon like avatar. People feel so happy putting them in their profile and later getting bewildered on finding their profile photo not appearing in the search results.

So, it’s simple enough that, if you want to get your photo to appear in the SERPs, then you should not use any kind of cartoonized avatars. Although there has been many cases where the profile pictures did appear in the SERPs, even after using cartoon avatars. But my advice is to be on the safe side, and not to use these kind of photos in your Google+ profile.

An example of cartoons or avatars profile photos in Google+

4) Face-Not-In-Focus Photos

Now these are the generic photos where the face is not in the main focus. These photo’s generally don’t appear in the SERPs. Even I myself used a picture where my face was not the main thing in focus and this messed it all up and my profile photo didn’t appear in the search results page.

So, it’s always a good idea not to go for generic photos in the Google+ profile if you want to make sure that your photo appears in the SERPs. I have just shared an example of generic profile photos below, of Google’s Amit Singhal. But fortunately his photo appears in the searches, I don’t know why? Maybe it’s because he is Amit Singhal. LOL

An example of generic profile photos in Google+

5) Multiple Face Photos

Don’t use photos with multiple faces, like a group photo with friends, or a snap with your lover, or anything like that. Google may or may not display it in the search results, as the photo has more than one faces in it. One of the faces may be yours, but the other ones are in no way relevant to the article and it is quite justified for Google not to show them in the search results.

So, to avoid any kind of problem with Google+ profile photos appearing in the search results, it is the best solution to use photos with only one face, that is, your own face. Reserve your sweet group photos for other purposes.

An example of multiple face profile photos in Google+

6) Low-quality Or Unclear Photos

Now, sometimes this makes a real problem. I myself was also the victim of this same problem for my Google Authorship. I was using a snap of mine which was a very low-quality one, not at all sharp and was very unclear. So, it was probably very difficult for Google to figure out who the person actually was in reality. Or even if they detected a real face in the photo, they may have thought not to display this kind of unclear shot to the Googlers.

So, if you want to make sure that your profile photo appears in the search results page, then make sure that you use a good-quality photo, where the face is in clear and sharp focus.

An example of low-quality profile photo in Google+

I hope, these solutions will help you to solve your problem of Google+ profile photo not appearing in the SERPs. I too had this terrible problem, and one of these solutions helped me solve it finally, so I feel that these solutions can easily save up the mess. If you still can’t solve it, then you can write to us about this problem in the comment section. We will try to suggest other possible ways to solve your problem too.