Why is my favicon not showing?

Short answer: usually the icon file the page points to doesn't load: a wrong path, a file left out of a deploy, or a link in the page that points at the old site. Browsers also cache favicons hard, so a fixed one can take a while to appear for you.

How to check it yourself

View your page's source and find <link rel="icon". Note the address it points to.
Open that address directly: it should show the image, not a 404.
If there's no link tag, browsers try /favicon.ico, so check that too.
After fixing it, test in a private window, because your normal browser may have cached the old one.

Why it matters

The favicon is the small icon on browser tabs, bookmarks and some search results. When it's missing, browsers show a blank or generic icon, which makes the site look unfinished and harder to find among open tabs. Browsers also request /favicon.ico on every site, so a missing one fills logs with 404 errors.

Common causes

There's no <link rel="icon"> tag, and no file at /favicon.ico.
The tag points at a file path that doesn't exist after a redesign.
The browser cached the old or missing icon, so changes don't show straight away.
The icon file is in a format or size some browsers don't accept.

What Preventionlabs shows

Every report's page basics check confirms whether the favicon actually loads, along with whether the homepage images load, placeholder text, links to development addresses, the page language, link previews and structured data.

Price

First report free, no card needed. Then A$50 a month, up to 10 domains.

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