The Association of a Favorites Icon to a Website

Favicon term is a shortcut for Favorites Icon that represents a Windows icon associated to a certain website. It appears in the Address Bar before the website address, next to the page title in a tabbed browser and in the Favorites menu of the web browser if the respective website was added in the Favorites list. The Favicon allows webmasters to give a note of distinction to their web presence by customizing the site appearance in the visitors' browsers.

The icon file could be your logo in case of a business website or any other picture having the .ico format. In order to obtain the best results you should create a .bmp image having the dimensions 16X16 pixels. Then using an image editor (XnView or IrfanView) the .bmp image must be converted to .ico format with the File-Save As command. An image higher than 16X16 pixels can also be used, because the web browser will automatically resize it, but the results will not be always optimal. The icon file must be uploaded in the root directory of your website and named favicon.ico. The web browser automatically searches for your favicon.ico file and displays it. To associate with a webpage another icon named another.ico for example, in the head tag you must add the following code:


In case you place the favicon in another directory, different than the root folder, you must provide the full path to it. The favorites icon will be displayed by most of the modern web browsers. You can use different icons for every webpage. It is also recommended to use a link on your web pages that will allow visitors to add your website to favorites folder. There are many free javascripts on the web that perform these actions and are very easy to integrate in your web pages.