Gorgeous Woman Profile Image?

I asked this question: If my profile photo was a photo of a beautiful woman, would I get more traffic? And guess what, I got a lot of replies to what I thought was mostly an inoccuous question. Did more people come to answer this question because there was an image of a beautiful woman? My guess is that the answer is yes.

For good or bad, beautiful women are plastered all over the place for all walks of life to look at. Because of this we are used to having our attention drawn by them. When I asked the question and posted that beautiful woman's photo, I really did not have the intention of changing my profile image. I was just curious to see if the question would get a lot of activity because of the image itself.

A few of the points made by hubbers who answered are well worth putting into this hub.

• Giselle Maine, TheWorldNow, stricktlydating, Rosie2010 and rob_allen all indicated it would be dishonest, it would make me untrustworthy and it would lead to a loss of trust between my reader and I. That would also have been my first inclination which is why I would never replace the profile image I have now.
• Uninvited Writer and breathing indicate that it is the content of the hub that counts for traffic, not the profile image. I agree with respect to search engines, but do think that there will be some hubbers, even me occasionally, that will click on a hub purely because of the profile image. M. T. Dremer admits this too, and I doubt that he and I are the only ones.
• Anusha15 answers the question from the traffic side rather than the profile side, and I agree with her to a degree:

May be, but one thing is for sure, the increased traffic won't be targeted, quality traffic, and thus will be a temporary phenomenon.

Obviously in my case I started out with being Phil, but who would really know the difference if I started off as Jen and had that photo - wouldn't that entice some people to look at what I'm about, and then if I have quality hubs, wouldn't they stick around? puddingicecream is headed in the same direction with her comment - again, it has to do with what hubs I've written and if a hub title is captivating enough.

• nightwork4 I think is hitting the nail on the head - people who would have answered this question saying 'duh, of course I'd click - she's hot!' are simply not answering because they don't want to show this side of themselves.
• Finally, I am happy that I can rely on Matt for some levity with his sterling comment:

Hey Phil, did you get some work done? You seem less... scaly. I'm going to be your most LOYAL follower from now on.

ahhhh

wait, what was the question?

I, for one, do not intend to change my profile image from the fish that you see here. I have had this as my profile image for quite some time now, and as M. T. Dremer indicated, it is a good way to brand the Phil Plasma public works. My profile image is an easy way to distinguish me from others, it is rather unique in its clarity and it is, of course, a fish.