Free favicon checker
A favicon checker that finds every icon a page declares — the standard icons, the Apple touch icon and the /favicon.ico fallback — fetches each one to confirm it actually loads, and previews it. See whether your site has a working favicon everywhere it shows, including beside your Google result.
A small icon in a lot of important places
A favicon is easy to dismiss as decoration, but look at where it appears: the browser tab, every bookmark, the history list, the home-screen shortcut on a phone, and — since Google added it — right beside your listing in mobile search results. That last one moved the favicon from a nicety to a small but real part of how your search listing looks. A missing or broken one leaves a blank square or a generic globe in all of those places, which reads as unfinished next to a competitor whose icon is there.
Declared is not the same as working
Plenty of sites declare a favicon in their HTML that does not actually load — the link points at a file that was moved, renamed, or never uploaded, and the page still renders fine so nobody notices. Browsers cache favicons aggressively, which hides the problem from the very people most likely to visit their own site. This tool does not trust the declaration: it fetches each icon and confirms it returns a genuine image, so a broken link is caught rather than assumed to work.
You need fewer icons than you think
The favicon-generator ecosystem encourages exporting dozens of sizes and a wall of link tags. In practice a small set covers nearly everything: a favicon.ico in the site root, a 32-pixel PNG, and a 180-pixel Apple touch icon for iOS shortcuts, with an optional SVG that scales cleanly. Google asks only that the icon be a multiple of 48 pixels and crawlable. This tool shows which icons you actually declare and which of them load, so you can confirm the essentials are covered without drowning in variants.
Where this fits
The favicon is part of how your link presents itself, right alongside the social preview card and the page title. The Open Graph checker rebuilds the card shown when your link is shared; the meta tag checker covers the title and description shown in the result itself. For the full page scored across every check, run the free website checker, and what counts as a good score explains how to read the number it gives back.
Favicon questions
- What does a favicon checker do?
- A favicon checker fetches a page, finds every icon it declares — the standard icon links, the Apple touch icon, and the conventional /favicon.ico fallback — and then fetches each one to confirm it actually returns a real image. It previews the icon and reports which declared icons load and which are broken, so you can see at a glance whether your site has a working favicon.
- What is a favicon?
- A favicon is the small icon that represents your site in a browser tab, a bookmark, the history list, and increasingly beside your listing in Google's mobile search results. It is a tiny piece of branding that appears in a lot of high-visibility places. A missing favicon leaves a generic globe or blank square in all of them, which looks unfinished next to competitors who have one.
- Does a favicon appear in Google search results?
- Yes. Google shows a site's favicon next to its results on mobile, so it is part of how your listing looks in the search results themselves. Google needs to be able to crawl the favicon, it should be a multiple of 48 pixels square, and it should be visually recognizable at a small size. A broken or missing favicon means a blank space where a bit of brand recognition could be.
- What favicon sizes and formats do I need?
- At minimum, a favicon.ico in the site root and a PNG icon declared in the head. For broad coverage, a 32x32 and a 180x180 apple-touch-icon cover browsers and iOS home-screen shortcuts, and Google recommends an icon that is a multiple of 48 pixels. SVG favicons are now widely supported and scale cleanly. You do not need dozens of sizes — a small, well-chosen set covers nearly every place a favicon shows.
- Why isn't my favicon showing up?
- The usual causes are a favicon that was never declared or uploaded, a link pointing at a file that returns a 404, a file that is not actually a valid image, or aggressive browser caching showing you an old (or absent) icon. Browsers cache favicons hard, so a hard refresh or a fresh profile often reveals the real state. This tool fetches each declared icon directly, so it reports whether the file genuinely loads rather than what your cache remembers.
- Does a favicon affect SEO?
- Not as a ranking factor — it will not move your position. Its value is in the search result and the browser tab: on mobile, Google shows the favicon beside your listing, so a recognizable icon supports click-through and brand recognition at the moment someone chooses between results. It is a presentation and trust detail rather than a ranking lever, but it is a cheap one to get right.
- Why is my favicon not showing in Google search results?
- Google shows a favicon in mobile results only after it has crawled a site-wide icon that meets its requirements — a square file, a multiple of 48 pixels, referenced from the home page and reachable by Googlebot. If yours is missing, confirm the icon is not blocked by robots.txt and wait for the next crawl, since it updates on Google's schedule rather than instantly.
- Why is my favicon not updating in the browser?
- Browsers cache favicons aggressively, so an old icon often persists after you change it. Force a refresh by clearing the cache or loading the favicon file's URL directly, and confirm the new file has actually replaced the old one at the same path rather than sitting at a new address the HTML does not reference.
- What size should a favicon be?
- Provide the favicon as a square in a size that is a multiple of 48 pixels, such as 48, 96 or 144 pixels, since Google resizes from those. It is common to supply several sizes so browsers, bookmarks and search results each pick an appropriate one, with a 32-pixel icon covering most browser tabs.
- How do I add a favicon to my website?
- Add a favicon by placing the icon file on your server and referencing it from the <head> with a <link rel="icon"> tag, or by putting a favicon.ico at the site root where browsers look by default. Supplying a PNG at a few sizes plus an apple-touch-icon covers tabs, bookmarks and mobile home screens.
- What is the difference between a favicon and an apple-touch-icon?
- A favicon is the small icon shown in browser tabs, bookmarks and search results, while an apple-touch-icon is the larger icon iOS uses when someone saves your site to their home screen. They are separate files declared with different link tags, so a complete setup includes both.