This is a little piece of graphic that becomes a symbol for your brand on the browser tabs, search history, bookmark list, search ads and on the other search results. Favicons are also called bookmark icon, tab icon, website icon, URL icon.

Favicons are basically used for branding and usability. It is basic human nature to respond better to visuals as compared to text. If you have a recognizable favicon like any big renowned brand then it will work great for people who want to recognize your brand.

Image: Shutterstock by By ronstik

How favicons help

Saves User’s Time

It will help the users to identify your website from history, bookmarks and all the other places. It is good for quick identification. For an average user, it will be a great help.

Avoids a 404

Even if you don’t have a favicon.ico file in the root folder of your website then the browser is going to automatically request it. And if you do not have that file then the file will respond by showing 404 not found.

Favicons for SEO

You might have read it sometime or the other that favicons benefit your website but there is not any direct benefit to the website however there are many indirect benefits:

Increased Usability of the Website

It increases the usability of the website and it leads to the higher search engine ranking of the website. If your website has a favicon then it will help the user saves the time. Your website users can identify, browse and search for your website without any difficulty.

Bookmarks

When you keep thousands of favicons in the bookmark page then when you search for it again you will be able to locate it quite easily. You might lose a search engine ranking.

Creating a favicon for your website

Image: Shutterstock By Galina Petrenko

There are many tools with the help of which you can create favicons in just a few minutes. Try these tools for free:

Real Favicon Generator

This will help you create a favicon for Android devices, Windows 8, tablet, iPhone/iPad, Mac browsers etc. This tool has various kinds of browser compatible icons. This tool will also help you by giving a clear picture of how your current favicon is and it will give a report about it. The report will show the compatibility of the browser on various browser and devices.

Dynamic Drive Favicon Generator

With the help of this tool you can create .png, .gif and .ico format icons. You can also add transparency to your icons with the help of the tool (.pnf and .gif formats only). This website will also offer additional free tools such as the animated gif generator that come in use when you wish to make animated gif icons for your website.

DeGraeve Favicon Generator

If you have some who has a strict choice and needs a Favicon Checker designed according to your choice, then you will need this as in this you get the option to customize your favicon just the way you like it.

Some other tools that are available online for creating favicons are:

• Iconifier
• ProDraw
• Favicon.cc
• Favicon From Pics
• Favicon-Generator
• ConvertIcon
• Favikon

A favicon might look like being a small part of website design, but these are actually a small part of something big. It can help make your website successful. If you have not installed a favicon for your website yet then you need to customize one.

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