Do you want to see all the places where a favicon can be displayed? Then, just follow along, and I’ll show you.
I’m going to give you the URLs for two websites. They’re two of my favorite sites, but probably you’ve never even heard of them before. If you’re already familiar with one of them, choose the other for the purposes of this demonstration. Then you’ll be able to see its favicon suddenly appearing when your browser locates it. Don’t do anything right away, but here are the URLs for you to choose from. Wait!
URL1: www.stormcarib.com
URL2: www.triddlers.com
1st Place: the Address Bar
OK. It’s time. Open a new tab. If you can’t do that, then just open a new window. Type the URL you picked into the Address Bar. But look at your screen quickly, or you’ll miss the favicon’s first appearance! It’s going to show up just in front of the URL you’re typing in.
2nd Place: the Tab Bar
If you’re using a tabbed browser, then you’ll also see the favicon just to the left of the title of the website. If not, then you won’t be able to observe the favicon’s second location.
3rd Place: Bookmarks or Favorites
If you’ve never been to this URL before, it obviously won’t be in your bookmarks yet. So click on ‘Favorites’, then ‘Add to Favorites’. Now just click ‘Add’. Go back to ‘Favorites’, and you should see your new favorite at the bottom of the list, with its favicon just to the left.
If you have just made your own favicon, and you can’t find it anywhere, don’t give up yet! This kind of thing is always happening. Just follow this procedure:
1) Clear your cache.
2) If you still can’t find your favicon, close and reopen your browser.
3) If that still doesn’t work, there are only two possibilities left: a) Your browser doesn’t support favicons, which is highly unlikely, or b) You don’t really HAVE a favicon!
OK, it says ‘favicon.ico’. But it still might not be a REAL favicon. You have to create a favicon according to the proper procedure, or it won’t work. The next paragraph has more info about the easiest way to do this.
Let me show you where to go to create a favicon to use on your own website. Visit my blog at ScriptsForYourWebsite.com for lots of great easy-to-use scripts and plugins for your own blog.
