Favicons : Explained!

Possibly without knowing, a Favicon is something you will see every time you logon to the internet.
A simple explanation of the Favicon is to breakdown what it stands for, it simply means ‘Favourites Icon’

It is a small, usually 16×16 pixel image displayed next to your favourites or bookmarks link and often shown to the left of the URL you are currently looking at.

For instance, The ‘G’ when you use Google, the ‘W’ when you use Wikipedia, or of course the pink ‘LCN’ icon on this very site.

Favicons were originally intended to be a visual aid for when viewing what tends to be an ever increasing list of favourite links and bookmarks you may save with your web browser. They can help attract web users to click on your link from their list of favourites and bring a certain amount of extra professionalism to your website.
Best of all, they are extremely easy to create.

Firstly you will need your logo or picture. You can either use an existing image or create your own from scratch.
Remember to keep your icon simple and bold. 16×16 pixels is a very small image so do not make it too complex.
Then simply convert your picture file from .jpg, .png, .bmp or .gif, to the file type required for your Favicon, which is .ico.

You can convert your image to a .ico file only through a variety of different online generator websites, the one chosen for this guide is http://www.favicon.cc.

Either create (or upload) your image and download your favicon.ico file.
All you need to do now is add the file into the root directory of your website ie; /www.yourlcndomain.com/web/’.

Up to date versions of Internet Explorer and Firefox will pick up the favicon.ico file straight away without the need to add any additional code to your website.

That is all there is to it, your Favicon logo is now visible to all who view your site and stored if they add it to their favourites list.