Google Search Central updated their favicon documentation to recommend higher-resolution images, exceeding the previous minimum standard. Be aware of the changes described below, as they may impact how your site appears in search results.
Favicon
A favicon is a custom icon that is shown in browser tabs, browser bookmarks, browser favorites and sometimes in the search results. The word “favicon” is short for Favorites Icon.
An attractive favicon is useful for making it easier for users to find links to your site from their bookmarks, folders and browser tabs and can (in theory) help increase clicks from the search results. Thus, a high quality favicon that meets Google’s requirements is important in order to maximize popularity, user interactions and engagements, and visits from the search engine results pages (SERPs).
What Changed?
One of the changes to Google’s documentation is to make it clearer that a favicon must be in a square aspect ratio. The other important change is to strongly emphasize that publishers use a favicon that’s at least a 48×48 pixel size. Eight by eight pixels is still the minimum acceptable size for a favicon but publishers will probably miss out on the opportunity for a better presentation in the search results by going with a an 8×8 pixel favicon.
This is the part of the documentation that changed:
Previous version:
“Your favicon must be a multiple of 48px square, for example: 48x48px, 96x96px, 144x144px and so on (or SVG with a 1:1 (square) aspect ratio).”
New version:
“Your favicon must be a square (1:1 aspect ratio) that’s at least 8x8px. While the minimum size requirement is 8x8px, we recommend using a favicon that’s larger than 48x48px so that it looks good on various surfaces.”
Comparison Of Favicon Sizes
Reason For Documentation Changes
Google’s changelog for documentation says that the change was made to make it clearer what Google’s requirements are. This is an example of Google taking a look at their documentation to see how it can be improved. It’s the kind of thing that all publishers, even ecommerce merchants, should do at least once a year to identify if they overlooked an opportunity to be communicate a clearer message. Even ecommerce or local merchants can benefit from a yearly content review because things change or customer feedback can indicate a gap in necessary information.
This is Google’s official explanation for the change:
“Updated the favicon guidelines to state that favicons must have a 1:1 aspect ratio and be at least 8x8px in size, with a strong recommendation for using a higher resolution favicon of at least 48x48px.
What: Updated the favicon guidelines to state that favicons must have a 1:1 aspect ratio and be at least 8x8px in size, with a strong recommendation for using a higher resolution favicon of at least 48x48px.
Why: To reflect the actual requirements for favicons.”
Read the newly updated favicon guidelines at:
Guidelines
Featured Image by Shutterstock/Elnur