For a while now I’ve been trying to have my avatar appear next to the search results leading to my blog. There are many guides online that I’ve tried, but nothing seems to work. I followed all the steps – verified my email, had a high quality image, linked the site to my Google+ profile, used the “by” string next to articles and the “?author” parameter in the link. Still, no image.
Today I was looking around to see if I could find any other tip. And apparently, there is this page now, which clarifies my problem in the first step:
Make sure you have a profile photo with a recognizable headshot.
When you put it this way, then I can see why even the high quality image wouldn’t be recognized. It’s not a full headshot. It’s a tight crop that computers might have a problem with, while people see. Hopefully, this will be enough to finally sort it out. If it will, I’ll play around with the original avatar to see how far I can take it without loosing the recognition.