favicon.ico

What's going on in my logs?

[purple_cat]

I'm trying to get my head around my hits log file and saw this:

GET /favicon.ico

I understand that favicons are those neat little icons that appear in Favorites, so does this just mean that someone's trying to bookmark the site?

[mat]

Yes. Aside from aesthetics, it's always worth creating one of these, if, for nothing else, to clean up your logs somewhat. Ditto robots.txt.

[pete_m]

Also, certain browsers (Mozilla, Firefox, Opera?) automatically request favicon.ico so that the logo appears next to the URL in the address bar.

[gethan]

Clarifying Gecko based browsers: not automatic, but if:

<LINK REL="SHORTCUT ICON" HREF="/favicon.ico">

or

<link rel=icon href='/favicon.ico'>

Check the source of this page :)

appears in the header then Gecko browsers get the icon. IE automatically requests a favicon.ico if bookmarked.

[Staffa]

Also, some sites request favicon to enhance their own pages - sort of hotlinking.

[purple_cat]

Thanks all!

Will add this to my 'To Do List' . . . .