Solution To Why your Profile Picture Don't Show In Google Search?

reason author profile picture not showing
Its really exciting when you experiment and receive positive results. For the past few weeks I had been experimenting to find reasons on why author profile picture is not displaying in Google search results page for some web owners/bloggers whilst on contrary Google+ thumbnail images are appearing just fine for others. I applied every single formula to find a valid answer but succeeded just today with an extremely simple solution to the problem. You can see my Google+ profile picture appearing just fine in search results. Just write blogger tricks in Google and you will see the profile picture appearing to the left of  blog title and description snippet text and my full name appearing just below blog URL. Or you can simply paste any of our blog post link in Google to see the result. This feature is called authorship which is an excellent way of claiming authorship of your content on Google search pages and best way to attract more traffic.
Note: The profile picture was detected just today for this blog therefore the pic is showing up for most of the posts except some posts where it does not display. It will take one more day hopefully for Google to display it for every single page. 

What Is Causing The Profile Pic Not To Display?

I wrote a detailed tutorial on this topic earlier and there were few points that needs to be corrected. The reason why author picture is not displaying for most of the websites is  because of unbalanced image size ratio of the profile pic. Google correctly displays a thumbnail image only if it has equal width and height dimensions. My previous profile picture on About us page looked like this:
Mustafa-Ahmedzai[10]
as you can see this image is rectangular and it can not be automatically turned into a square thumbnail with equal height and width dimensions by Google robots because doing this will badly destroy the image quality. To solve this problem I resized my image by giving it 128px by 128px in size and using JPEG format. Only this slight change made it easy for robots to detect a good match of author thumbnail and display a square thumbnail of my profile pic in search results.
google author profile picture
Google now automatically creates the following quality thumbnail profile pic on all my published articles by resizing my original pic to 44px by 44px in size.
google author profile photo

How To Show Author Profile Picture Correctly?

The steps mentioned here are mostly similar to my first published tutorial but here we will share a more correct approach. This is what you need to do:
  1. First add your Google Plus Profile link anywhere on your blog sidebar using the following code:
<a href="Google Plus profile Link"
rel="author" target="_blank"> Join me on Google+</a>
rel="author" will tell robots that you are the actual author of the blog. Make these changes:
  • Replace Google Plus profile Link  with your profile link. Example my link looks like: http://plus.google.com/107381172453188253394
  • You can replace Join me on Google+ with any text you like. (Optional)
This is how the link looks on my sidebar:
google plus link in sidebar

    2.     Next add a Link to your About Us Page just below your blog footer or anywhere you like. I have added this link to my blog footer using the following code:
<a rel="author" href="http://www.mybloggertricks.com/2008/06/something-about-me.html">About</a>
This is how it looks on the blog:
about link in footer
You can give it any title you like but add it either to sidebar or footer.
    3.  Now the most important part. Inside your About Page add your profile pic with dimensions 128px by 128px in size and using JPEG format. Also start the first line of the paragraph with your Google plus profile link using the following code:
<a rel="me" href=https://plus.google.com/107381172453188253394 title="Mohammad Mustafa Ahmedzai">Mohammad</a>
Here rel="me" will again further authenticate you as the original owner of the blog. Remember to add your full name next to title  and add your Google+ profile link instead of my profile link and  your first name instead of Mohammad.
The result should look like this:
author about page authorship settings

       4.      Now go to your G+ profile and click the “Edit Profile” button
edit profile button
        5.       Then click on the "LINKS" area as shown below,
google+ links settings
Add your Blog homepage URL and also the URL of your About Us page. You can also add your Facebook and twitter links if you wish. I have observed that now Google offers two link options. One is called Other Profiles and second is called Recommended links. Add your Homepage link, Facebook and twitter links to Other Profiles  and About Us Page link to Recommended links.
Next you must do this:
      6.   One Final step is to Upload a quality Profile Pic of yourself on Google Plus. Your image will look best if it is 150px by 150px in size or you can use the same 128px by 128px  size profile pic that you added to your blog about page. To learn about Google+ image Dimensions Click here.
change profile pic
     7.   Finally Save your profile and you are all done!

Note: Now Go To Blogger and Set the same image as your Blogger Profile Picture.
Wait for at most two days and you will see your profile picture appearing just perfectly in Google search results, giving a professional and pro touch to your little blog. :)

Test How your profile photo will appear

In order to see how your image will appear. Visit rich snippets tool and submit your homepage link in the search box and hit preview as shown below,
rich snippets tool
If you have followed the tutorial correctly then you will profile authorship will be verified. You will see a green verification message saying: "Verified: Authorship markup is verified for this page"
If you seem to be getting errors then revise the tutorial and retry and retest until you get no errors at all.

Need Help?

You are most welcomed to ask anything if not cleared. You are more then welcomed to post your queries. In order to ping Google robots that you have updated your About Us page, you can also submit your about us page at http://blogsearch.google.com/ping. Though I did not ping it but if your PageRank is below 2.0 then its better to submit both your blog link and about us page link to Google for re-indexing.
I wish that the profile pictures show up as easily as it did for me without needing to wait any longer. Please share this post with all your loved ones to share the knowledge the way we did. This is the only favor we request in return. Peace and blessings pals! :)

If you don't want to get yourself into Serious Technical Trouble while editing your Blog Template then just sit back and relax and let us do the Job for you at a fairly reasonable cost. Submit your order details by Clicking Here »

93 comments

PLEASE NOTE:
We have Zero Tolerance to Spam. Chessy Comments and Comments with 'Links' will be deleted immediately upon our review.
  1. Thanks for the premium information.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Thanks! Also if my about page as other links and images will it still work fine? If not how do I specify the profile image?

    ReplyDelete
  3. Every blogger must take note that you can't avail this feature instantly. On my case, I made these steps and achieved the results after 1 to 2 months. I don't know nowadays if google made some changes. Good luck everyone.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Yahoo i can see your profile picture on Google search yes this will really help us to claim our content against content scrapper.

    Btw Mohammad I see some blog that don't even created about me page create with rel="me" link but their profile pictures appear in Google search, when I am searching for answer.

    One thing that they have in common is that their google + profile pictures size is 200px * 200px that's it.

    You can search on Google by this name whatuget and mbahqopet

    Hopefully you can create a post on this.

    Thanks

    ReplyDelete
  5. Well don't know if you have just tracked my search activity because just yesterday I was searching for a solution on this and today I get a post.. LoL..

    For me rich snippets tool shows "Verified: Publisher markup is verified for this page" www.plentyofebooks.net but when www is removed it gives me an error "Error: This page does not include verified publisher markup."

    Also before when I checked I even got a verified message for authorship markup but now it doesn't show and neither I get any error. Also the pic (the new one) was displaying correct before but now rich snippets show the old pic.

    Also check this page. According to Google it doesn't looks necessary to have an about me page.

    I have still not got this in search result.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Great just checked back again with rich snippets and now it shows everything as before.

    I got "Verified: Authorship markup is verified for this page." and "Verified: Publisher markup is verified for this page."

    One error is:

    "Warning: Both rel="publisher" and rel="author" are present on the page. You should put rel="author" on content pages and rel="publisher" on your home page only (unless this is the home page of a single author site). "

    But I think this one doesn't matters bcoz I am the only author.

    But its not the same when I remove www

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  7. Bro I cant find the ''Links'' in google plus profile!

    ReplyDelete
  8. Can you please check what is the problem? http://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/richsnippets?url=http%3A%2F%2Fpfoffice.org.in%2F&view=

    ReplyDelete
  9. @Hamxa Wasim You'll find it on the right side under ABOUT Tab.

    ReplyDelete
  10. hfeed
    hentry
    entry-title = How to Look younger in old age - Exercise Prevents Muscle Aging and atrophy
    entry-content = You must be familiar with the many leading celebrities of the world and you must be wondering that why they are not getting old, how they look so younger in old age. Especially Male celebrities...
    hcard
    fn = Dr Adil Ramzan
    Warning: Missing required field "updated".

    I get the above mentioned warning msg when i entered my url into the snippet tool ..
    what should i do now?
    do you have same errors ?

    ReplyDelete
  11. thanks yar i have added it.
    Also i have started to write about some tricks to improve traffic to our blogs.This is my first post please check this and rate me in the comments yar.
    thankyou and waiting for your comment.


    link:http://mybestfavourites.blogspot.in/2012/02/increase-traffic-from-facebook-pages-to.html

    ReplyDelete
  12. I am getting this error:

    Extracted Author/Publisher for this page
    author
    linked author profile = https://plus.google.com/111386732147361420273
    google profile = https://plus.google.com/111386732147361420273
    author name = PF Office
    Verified: Authorship markup is verified for this page. Learn more.
    Extracted rich snippet data from the page
    hfeed
    hentry
    Rel
    name = Permanent Link to PF Office Gulbarga, PF Office Address Gulbarga, EPFIndia, PF
    rel = bookmark
    url = http://pfoffice.org.in/pf-office-gulbarga/
    Warning: Missing required field "entry-title".
    Warning: Missing required field "updated".
    Warning: Missing required hCard "author".

    Please somebody help!

    ReplyDelete
  13. @john
    I could not clearly understand your question pal. Could you explain it in more details. The best is to use just one picture in your about Page and not multiple. To specify a profile image use this code:
    <img src="Profile Image Link" />

    @Manuel Garcia
    This method will work instantly manuel. I guess you have missed reading our previous tutorial that we published last year. This new method provides correct way to do it. If it took you a month then may be you did not added rel="author" and re="me" attributes to your pages.

    @Auren Lengkong
    Even your profile is appearing just fine and you are using 128 by 128 px profile image. Great pal! :)
    Well of course some of the steps I mentioned are extra just to fill every single blank so that robots may find it extremely easy to detect and generate your thumbnail photo. Things surely work with rel attributes for some but in order to fill every vacant blank, all steps should be followed.


    @bhavesh
    I can not access your blog without www. This is because you have not redirected your naked domain (http://http://plentyofebooks.net//) to your custom domain (http://www.plentyofebooks.net/)

    To do this go to blogger > settings > Publishing and then click the checkbox that says to redirect http://plentyofebooks.net/ to http://www.plentyofebooks.net/

    This change is very important. You traffic will multiply.


    @Ranjit
    Indeed only step#1 and step#5 are enough for it to work but for some it fails to to work therefore the rel attributes are another way out to the problem.


    @@hamxa wasim

    Go to your homepage and copy it from address bar and remove the part /posts


    @Ravi

    You have not added the google Plus profile link on your sidebar with rel="author" attribute. Neither have you added the rel="author" attribute to your about link in the footer.

    Secondly since these profile thumbnails only displays the author image therefore any product or brand logo will not work. You must convert your Google+ title to your name and also link your profile in about page with your name instead of PDF Office. PDF office is a keyword and your profile pic is a logo and therefore it would not be possible for them to be picked up by Google.


    @Dr Adil
    You need to make these changes:

    1. Add only one image in your about Page and the one which is 128 by 128 in size. Remove the other images.Also do not link your image to your profile. Instead link your Full or first name to your profile.


    2. You have added about link and about me link twice on your Google+ profile. Remove the unnecessary links and add just your homepage url, about link and Facebook and twitter links.


    Make these changes and retest. It will work just fine now hopefully.


    @

    ReplyDelete
  14. There were nameserver and dns problems with CloudFare. Before it was perfectly been redirected. Now it should be working fine. It may take 24hrs to update but for me its working fine.

    Btw do you think that speed of my blog is slow??

    ReplyDelete
  15. I see your comment is not complete. Make be because its too long.

    ReplyDelete
  16. https://www.facebook.com/androidmud
    plz like

    ReplyDelete
  17. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  18. thanks brother.. my blog already get verified with the green text.. your tutorial awesome man.. thanks a lot.

    ReplyDelete
  19. I don't usually take the time to comment - but many thanks for this! I love it!

    ReplyDelete
  20. Can you help me? I had my husband do all of your steps for me two days ago and I still do not see my profile image in Google search.

    On Snippets tool, I do get the green verified message but below that message I do have errors in the "Extracted rich snippet data from the page" part.

    I do not know what is wrong nor how to fix the problem. My home page is www.midsouthmoma.com

    Thank you for your blog, I am a new blogger and your blog has been very educational and helpful to me.

    ReplyDelete
  21. Hello Mohammad, thank you very much for this post. It worked for me.

    However, I am having a problem. This message appeared when I tested my site URL in the Google Snippet:

    Extracted Author/Publisher for this page
    author
    linked author profile = http://www.naijatechblog.com/p/about-us.html
    google profile = http://profiles.google.com/113608299603793774847/about
    author name = Jackson Nwachukwu
    Verified: Authorship markup is verified for this page. Learn more.

    publisher
    linked Google+ page = https://plus.google.com/b/100811437055130458106/
    Warning: Both rel="publisher" and rel="author" are present on the page. You should put rel="author" on content pages and rel="publisher" on your home page only (unless this is the home page of a single author site).
    author

    linked author profile = http://naijatechblog.com/p/113608299603793774847

    The publisher is my Google+ plus, I don't know how it came to be, I have the widget on my blog sidebar, could be the reason why it is showing warning? If I remove it from my sidebar, then it means I won't have a Google+ page widget on my blog(www.naijatechblog.com). Please help me sort this issue.

    Thank you.

    ReplyDelete
  22. http://allbloggingtips.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/problem-with-abt.png

    Kindly see this image. I got verified but image is not showing in results. Help me bro Mohammad!

    ReplyDelete
  23. @Ammar Ali See this says

    Extracted Author/Publisher for this page
    author
    linked author profile = https://plus.google.com/103280517588083500359
    google profile = https://plus.google.com/103280517588083500359
    author name = Ammar Ali
    Verified: Authorship markup is verified for this page. Learn more.
    author
    linked author profile = http://allbloggingtips.com/about

    ReplyDelete
  24. I have got it and guess what I got it without any other profile page :)

    ReplyDelete
  25. i'm not find links under ABOUT tab?

    ReplyDelete
  26. @mohammad,I am getting the fallowing error even after adding the links google plus profile
    Error:We could not find a link from the Other profiles or Contributor to section of your Google Profile to verify this page. Learn more

    ReplyDelete
  27. Thanks for info, i will try it
    but i ever listen this is spam by google --"

    ReplyDelete
  28. It is been 4 days No result! ,had done all things which are mentioned in this post. Checked rich snippets tool and it say's
    "Verified: Authorship markup is verified for this page"

    But Profile Picture Don't Show In Google Search! What is the reason Mohammad?

    Blog URL : www.linkstoweb.in

    ReplyDelete
  29. This comment has been removed by the author.

    ReplyDelete
  30. Hi,
    I have followed your trick and kept image size as described above. It has been a week and still my image is not showing up in Google search result.
    What could be the possible reason?
    Thanks
    http://discoverdreamland.blogspot.in

    ReplyDelete
  31. i am getting this error :::

    Extracted Author/Publisher for this page
    author
    linked author profile = http://www.blogger.com/profile/12198594558172646327
    Error: Author profile page does not have a rel="me" link to a Google Profile.

    what can i do ?

    ReplyDelete
  32. i applied this method to my blog, still im waiting for my profile pic on google :D

    ReplyDelete
  33. @Rafeed K . Inside your About Page add your profile pic with dimensions 128px by 128px in size and using JPEG format. Also start the first line of the paragraph with your Google plus profile link using the following code:

    Mohammad
    Here rel="me" will again further authenticate you as the original owner of the blog. Remember to add your full name next to title and add your Google+ profile link instead of my profile link and your first name instead of Mohammad.

    ReplyDelete
  34. thanks a lot bro. i have learned a lot many think via mtb blog

    i m very much thankful to you for providing a world best platform for the blogger user

    ReplyDelete
  35. Hey admin..
    I applied all the steps but still there are many errors.

    First one is that "Linked google+ profile" shows my Googe+ page & "liked google+ page" shows my google+ profile.

    SEE THIS SCREENSHOT : http://i40.tinypic.com/a3ppo3.png

    Second problem is that it's showing errors like :

    Warning: Missing required field "updated".
    Warning: Missing required hCard "author".

    Please help..

    ReplyDelete
  36. Followed all the steps,Webmater tools showing all well but still no avatar on google search.

    My site : iluvmyn8.blogspot.com

    ReplyDelete
  37. thanks for this trick,
    your tricks are very easy to understand and to do

    ReplyDelete
  38. Thank you so much for a great tutorial. Very simple and well-written, thank you very much.

    ReplyDelete
  39. it's showing errors like :

    Warning: Missing required field "updated".
    Warning: Missing required hCard "author".

    Please help..

    ReplyDelete
  40. Hello, I have added the codes as required. Still, my profile picture does not come up. Can you please take a look?

    Blog: http://mowingthelaw.blogspot.in/

    About me page: http://mowingthelaw.blogspot.in/p/about-me.html

    Thanks a lot!

    ReplyDelete
  41. hai

    how i can renovte this link

    hcard
    photo = http://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-CwJ-yKiw2wM/AAAAAAAAAAI/AAAAAAAAABI/uMxvmKJ7oUs/s512-c/photo.jpg
    Warning: This information will not appear as a rich snippet in search results results, because it seems to describe an organization. Google does not currently display organization information in rich snippets
    Warning: Missing required field "name (fn)".

    ReplyDelete
  42. Amazing Tutorial! Nothing else to say :)

    ReplyDelete
  43. I have this erorr: The excerpt from the page will show up here. The reason we can't show text from your webpage is because the text depends on the query the user types.

    How can i resolve this? Please some help ..Thanks

    ReplyDelete
  44. Thanks Mohammad alot.
    I followed your steps and it worked for me..!!

    ReplyDelete
  45. in google+ interface their is no contributor please soon help

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  46. Hey, I can see that you don't put rel="nofollow" tag on G+ profile link. It's not the case with facebook, twitter and RSS.
    Why?

    Thanks,
    Elena

    ReplyDelete
  47. Thanx Bro...
    Here my blog
    www.fansofapk.com
    www.azadfunclub.com

    ReplyDelete
  48. I have done it yesterday. and got the meesage "Verified: Authorship markup is verified for this page" but still my profie picture is not appear in google search page. my url = www.currentjobsinodisha.blgspot.com

    ReplyDelete
  49. My google plus image not show since morning

    any malware attack of else

    Please clear my confusion

    ReplyDelete
  50. @jogbani.co.in Sorry that was or not of

    Now
    Complete question is
    My google plus image not show since morning

    any malware attack or else

    Please clear my confusion

    ReplyDelete
  51. A lil dizzy with this codes. ;-)
    Thanks anyway for sharing this bright ideas of yours.

    ReplyDelete
  52. Thanks for the very useful info. I was trying to figure out why only some profile photos would appear in google search results. And it also appeared randomly. I finally figured it out! Google will only return maximum 1 profile photo per page of results. I guess they don't want your face to explode all over the results page if you have more than one page on the results list.

    Anyways... I wonder if there is a way to get around that max 1 limitation. Probably not...

    ReplyDelete
  53. I did what you just told and now i preview my blog. i saw what i need to see. thanks mohammad!
    see you in the philippines!

    ReplyDelete
  54. I have done as per your instruction, let see my profile pic will appear in google search result or not.

    ReplyDelete
  55. I was just playing around in Google+ and it said the minimum for a profile pic is 250x250. Just FYI.

    ReplyDelete
  56. Done with all steps but still not showing pic..in rich snippet it shows verified!!!

    ReplyDelete
  57. @LauraineI have the same problem as you. that's weird...

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  58. you forget said one important thing. only add a custom domain could show out your avatar, if not, it won't show out.

    ReplyDelete
  59. May I ask how come after I've uploaded a slide show from Picasa to blogspot, all my pics in blogspot lost. Can you advise me how to solve it back? thx~

    ReplyDelete
  60. Thanks dear for tips. It worked for me.

    ReplyDelete
  61. thanx in advance bro...
    Clicktechonce.blogspot.in

    ReplyDelete
  62. Salaam Mohammed, Im very impressed by the way you have written about this topic and feel comfortable asking you for opinions and help. Mohammed by authorship has been verified "Verified: Authorship markup is verified for this page." My picture even shows in the rich snippets preview but it does not come up in the actual search. It has been 1 week now. Anything I can do?

    ReplyDelete
  63. @Debbie Navarro

    I don't actually remember as it is too old. I think it was done by adding rel="author" tag in a Google Plus link and by verifying the blog with Google Plus.

    ReplyDelete
  64. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  65. Hi Mohammad! Is this supposed to be working for my both Google+ profiles such as pages?

    Because my page has a longer URL and I can't make it work.

    Also, the Rich Snippets Tool are not working for me either :(
    http://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/richsnippets?url=http%3A%2F%2Fmakeupedia.se%2Floreal-diamantissme&html=

    ReplyDelete
  66. When I try to add picture using the size you say 128px x 128px Google tells me the image needs to be 250px x 250px

    ReplyDelete
  67. I get these error
    Warning: At least one field must be set for Hcard.
    Warning: Missing required field "name (fn)".
    how to remove this

    ReplyDelete
  68. i also have the same problem
    when i try to upload a profile picture to google+
    it says thatr my picture is too small and the minimum is 250by250

    ReplyDelete
  69. You should always insert a NAP while filling in social profiles (and I mean ALL), including all citations...

    What is a NAP?

    Name
    Address
    Phone...

    Google will pick these up

    Also have this on your website or even posts...

    ReplyDelete
  70. www.internetulagam.com is my website but it cant shows the picture. Pl let me know what mistake i made to it.

    ReplyDelete
  71. Vai can I remove the Join me at Google+ widget from the sidebar once the verification is done and Photo of mine is coming in the search results ??

    ReplyDelete
  72. hi mohammed thank you for shating this post

    i followed your steps as you told and got verified to my website www.shareusall.com. now i want how long google will take exactly to show my image on google

    ReplyDelete
  73. i worked for me but what happened is it is not displaying for home page instead of that is displaying for only one post what should i do for to get profile picture for my home page

    you can also search like this shareusall.com in google

    ReplyDelete
  74. it worked perfectly here check it out http://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/richsnippets?url=www.inforisticblog.com&html=

    ReplyDelete
  75. Sir i am facing some problem here..previously it was ok with blogspot templates i have changed the template Now my picture is not showing ..when i test in google structured data testing tool it is saying Authorship Email Verification
    Please enter a Google+ profile to see if the author has successfully verified an email address on the domain www.creativeeducationbd.com to establish authorship for this webpage. Learn more

    Email verification has not established authorship for this webpage.
    Email address on the creativeeducationbd.com domain has been verified on this profile: Yes
    Public contributor-to link from Google+ profile to creativeeducationbd.com: Yes
    Automatically detected author name on webpage: mahmud siddiqui.
    Error: Author name found on the page and Google+ profile name do not match.

    Now what can i do??? Please tell me..

    ReplyDelete
  76. thanx for sharing nice share...
    but i have a question, my web (http://www.sepatusportnike.com) already have picture for authorship.
    But this morning my picture disappeared from google search.
    Can you help why this thing happen.. thanx you very much

    ReplyDelete
  77. Sir , I used Google Structured Data Testing Tool, to verify but its saying Error: Author name found on the page and Google+ profile name do not match. Actually it should display nitish kasar but its displaying abhijit guha dont know how its happening please help

    ReplyDelete
  78. Automatically detected author name on webpage: Not Found. I am getting this error while verification? Can you check my blog and say what is problem...

    ReplyDelete
  79. Thanks man.. Helped me to troubleshoot probs!

    ReplyDelete
  80. Thanks for posting this valuable information......but tel me how i solve the problem

    Error: Missing required field "updated".
    Error: Missing required hCard "author"

    so how can i solve this problem please any one can solve this problem.......

    ReplyDelete
  81. This comment has been removed by the author.

    ReplyDelete
  82. Hello sir!! I have a problem to my authorship, when I log on to my gmail account and search my blog url to Google search, my authorship is working and display my picture on Google search result. But when I log out to my gmail account and search my blog url again, it is not working and no authorship or picture is display on Google search result. please help :(!!

    my blog: http://qneblog.blogspot.com/
    my Google+: https://plus.google.com/109199032921926475187

    thanks in advance!!

    ReplyDelete
  83. unfortunately today GOOGLE is no longer showing authorship in search result

    ReplyDelete