Favicons

Good idea or just a luxury

[bid4abook]

Not trying to run before I can walk, but would appreciate whether or not the expierianced websters out there think they are a good idea in respect of site identity/promotion or just a luxury?

[Receptional Andy]

I think it would be hard to argue that favicons are a necessity, however I personally like them, and feel that it adds a small extra feeling of quality when I visit a particular website. The addition of a favicon only takes a couple of minutes, but shows that the designer 'cares' ;)

At the moment, IE will only show the icon if someone bookmarks a page. I hope that it will follow Opera and Firefox in displaying these icons by default in the next version though.

[bid4abook]

Andy, thanks for that, I'm in agreement. Is there a reccommended site or tutorial on the making and incorporation of them?

[Nutter]

Plus, you don't have 404 errors littering your log files from Firefox users who can't find the file. :-)

[Receptional Andy]

Is there a reccommended site or tutorial on the making and incorporation of them?

You don't need to do much other than create an icon file, name it favicon.ico and upload it to the root of your website. There are a few freeware tools out there to help you make icons from image files if you don't have something that can do it already.

[Tidal2]

Favicons are a nice extra maybe a little luxury but don't need to much effort to do, have a look at -

[webmasterworld.com...]

[bid4abook]

Many thanks one and all, some excellent link pages amonst the replies. Again, thanks.

[limbo]

bid4book

It's worth mentioning that if you refer to the the favicon using an absolute link IE will handle it a little better (marginally)

eg: <link rel="shortcut icon" href="http://www.yoursite.com/favicon.ico">

[shigamoto]

A favicon is a luxury, but it gives a more serious impression. After all there aren't that many large websites that doesn't have a favicon.