What Is A Favicon?

Date First Published: 12th September 2022

Topic: Web Design & Development

Subtopic: Web Development

Article Type: Computer Terms & Definitions

Difficulty Level: 5/10

Learn more about what a favicon is in this article.

A favicon, also known as a shortcut icon, tab icon, website icon, or bookmark icon, is a small icon associated with a website or webpage that is displayed in the address bar or browser tab of a web browser. Favicons also appear in user's bookmarks or 'favourites' and on the SERP page.

Note:

Favicons are most commonly in the .ico format, but most web browsers support .png, .jpg, and .jpg files. Internet Explorer only displays favicons saved in the .ico format.

How To Add A Favicon?

A favicon can be added to a website using several methods below.

Head of HTML document

A favicon can be specified in the head of a HTML document by adding the element below. Note that the correct path needs to be specified with the name of the file along with the directory:

A favicon can also be hotlinked from an external website by the tag below:

Root directory

A favicon can be uploaded to the root directory of a website, which is the first directory where the homepage file is stored. This will apply the favicon to every webpage. However, the HTML tag can be used for web hosts that do not support the uploading of .ico files and when the favicon needs to be unique on specific pages. The HTML method overrides the favicon saved in the root directory.

Does A Website Need A Favicon?

A favicon is not absolutely necessary for the basic functionality of a website, but it is recommended to have one. When users have a lot of open tabs, favicons help users to differentiate the tabs by looking at the favicon that is identified with a specific website at the top of the tab next to the title of the webpage. Without a favicon, web browsers will display the default favicon, which may contain a picture of the globe. This can make websites look incomplete and less professional. The favicon file should also not be blocked from being crawled by search engines, since favicons show up on the search results page once they have been crawled and help identify the website.

History and Standardisation

Favicons have been around since the early days of the World Wide Web. Microsoft released Internet Explorer 5 in March 1999, which supported favicons for the first time. The favicons are displayed in the bookmarks (favourites) and next to the URL in the address bar if the page was bookmarked. The number of visitors who had bookmarked the page could be guessed based on the number of requests to the favicon, but this no longer works as all modern browsers display the favicon file in their web address bar, regardless of whether the page is bookmarked.

The W3C standardised the favicon in the HTML 4.01 recommendation, released in December 1999 and later in the XHTML1.0 recommendation, released in January 2000.