What is favicon

Why do you need a favicon? Users will remember and recognoize it, they would find a tab with your favicon among other tabs faster, scanning, as we all do, and not loosing time trying to read the tab name. Favicons also add to overall branding consistency and their absence might be seen as unprofessional.

Favicons are used in browser tabs, browser history, toolbar apps, bookmarks dropdown, search bar, and search bar recommendations.

In all of these, especially in the bookmarks and histoty tabs, that consist of lists of URLs all looking the same, the favicon makes it faster to find that web-site you're looking for. Woah, that was a lot to take in, right? Back in the day, we used a little file called a favicon. Favicons' format is always. It really comes down to what you want too create support for — this is the HTML5 syntax for displaying favicons:. As long as the touch icons are uploaded to the root folder of the website, Apple will know to look for them there, however, other operating systems also use these icons — even Android!

A browserconfig. Are there any more? Then you need to save the file as a. This is the recommended format supported by most web browsers. To convert your file to the. There are many available. Simply upload your image, select the icon size, and you can then download your brand new.

Then the image should be visible when you go to www. Most modern browsers will find your favicon file without the need to add any code, but to make sure all browsers display it properly, add the following to your header, within the tags of your page:.

They could improve their brand consistency by matching their logo and favicon. The optimal size for favicons is 16x16 pixels. You want to make your favicon recognizable and consistent with your brand identity. So instead of starting from scratch, you should base it on your company logo. You can hire a designer to create one for you, or you can use tools like Logo Crisp to design a high-quality logo for a fraction of the cost. Easy to Grow Bulbs did exactly that by taking the tulip from their logo and making it their favicon.

To make changes like these, you might need to use icon editing software like IconEdit2. With most icon editing software, you can add multiple sizes to a single icon file. However, for smaller changes like cropping an image, you can complete the entire process using a favicon generator. Below are some of the best favicon generators on the web. With these tools, you simply upload your favicon image and it will convert the image into proper favicon formats and make it available to download.

This process will only take a few minutes. ICO is compatible with all browsers, including Internet Explorer. PNG is another common format. Ideally, the generator you choose will allow you to download your favicon in both formats. Creating your favicon in Favikon is easy. The downside is that Favikon only supports one size: 16x16 pixels. For more size options, check out the tools below.

With Favicon. You can preview it in three different sizes before downloading. The options are listed below:. The download options are listed below:. You can then link to the file in HTML to implement the favicon on your site. Before we walk through that process below, it's important to note this applies to site owners who built their site from scratch or with a development framework like Bootstrap CSS. Please note : Your favicon does not have to be placed in the root directory of your site — it just usually is.