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What is a favicon?

A favicon is a small icon used in browsers to mark web pages and increase recognition. This artificial word, which originates from English, can be translated as favourite symbol. This icon or logo is usually 16×16 or 32×32 pixels in size

  • Helps to brand the website
  • Appears in tabs and favorites, among other things
  • Was introduced by Microsoft in 1999
  • Increases the legitimacy of a website

What is a favicon for?

A favicon is nothing more than a small picture representing a website. They are most often found in the address bar of the web browser, but can also be used in lists of bookmarks in web browsers and elsewhere. Well designed favicons are designed to match the logo or theme of the website. This allows users to quickly and easily recognize the website at a glance. Although most modern browsers recognize PNG, GIF, and JPG formats for favicons, Internet Explorer does not. It is therefore recommended that you use the Microsoft ICO format, which works in all browsers. Another good reason for using the ICO format is that it can contain several favorites of different sizes in one ICO file. It is best to have at least a 16×16 pixel version. The most common sizes for are 16×16, 32×32 and 48×48.

Although there are many ways to create favicons, the easiest way is to use an online tool. There are favicon generators that are completely free. To create a favicon, simply upload an image, crop it and then download the resulting icon. After you have created a nice little favicon, of course you have to tell web browsers and other applications where to find it. Adding it to the HTML code section will ensure that the favicon is found. The position of the favicon is not really important as long as the href attribute is correct. However, most are located in the root directory (the directory that contains the home page). The favicon is nowadays an important part of the interface of a web page, it is visible to everyone at the top of the browser. This small icon is also a kind of business card. Therefore it should be created in the same style as the page itself. The more often the website and this associated icon is used, the better it is. In addition, the icon used should be relevant and as understandable as possible. Visitors must be able to immediately understand what is depicted on it, and of course it should also be very memorable

The favicon helps brand the website

A favicon is used to successfully brand a website and also as a convenient way for visitors to find the page if multiple tabs have been opened. Because of their small size, favicons are best used as simple images or as one to three characters of text. To create a suitable favicon for a website, you can either hire a designer or do it yourself, based on the logo and brand colors. 16 × 16 pixels is the standard size used by desktop website browsers. However, many manufacturers of corporate websites will ask for other sizes. For example, WordPress requires 512 × 512 pixels and Squarespace requests 300 × 300 pixels. This is because favicons are not only used in browser bars. They also appear when a user bookmarks a site or saves a shortcut to their desktop or mobile home screen. In these cases, the icon becomes much larger. Favicon icons on smartphone screens are much larger than desktop favicons. WordPress automatically resizes and displays the correct image for each scenario, so you dont have to worry about resizing yourself. The default file format for favicons is .ico, but most website platforms also accept .png files. Creating a favicon is a small but quite important step in setting up a corporate website. It significantly increases the legitimacy of the website and helps to greatly improve online branding

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