What the heck is favicon.ico

Some time back, I had an email from a visitor asking me how I managed to have an icon displayed next to my URL in his browser's location bar. In fact, had he checked carefully, he would also have noticed that the icon is also used in his "Favorites" menu.

A favicon is nothing more than a 16x16 pixel image that is displayed in the address bar with your web site address. The Favicon first appeared in the address bar and favorites folder of users of Internet Explorer but is now a prominent fixture of most of today's web browsers such as Mozilla and Netscape.

How to Create a "favicon.ico" file

Create an image 16X16 pixels in size. Yes, it is really small.
Save the image as an ICO file (named "favicon.ico").
Upload it to the root directory of your website. You don't need to upload one to every directory of your site, simply put it in your root directory and the browser will locate it eventually.

A favicon the easy way

The easiest way to create a favicon is to use a generator. Just click the button below to create your favicon.