Favicon Checker: Will Google Show Your Icon?
A favicon checker tells you whether Google can show your icon next to your search results. Enter your site: we find every icon your homepage declares plus /favicon.ico, load each one as Googlebot-Image, and test it against Google's rules — square, at least 8×8 pixels, ideally larger than 48×48, or SVG.
We fetch your homepage, request every declared icon file and read its real format and pixel size from the file itself. Free, no signup. Updated Oct 24, 2026 by the AEOeye team.
What does Google require for a favicon?
A square image of at least 8×8 pixels, declared on your homepage with <link rel="icon">. Google's favicon guidelines recommend going bigger than 48×48 so it stays sharp, and SVG has no size requirement at all.
The rule used to be "a multiple of 48 pixels"; Google has since relaxed it to the 8×8 minimum. Checkers built on the old rule will still warn you about icons that are perfectly fine.
Why isn't Google showing my favicon?
Usually one of these:
- No link tag on the homepage — Google looks at the home page's head, not /favicon.ico by default.
- The file is blocked — Googlebot-Image must be able to crawl the icon and Googlebot the homepage.
- Not square — a 64×32 logo won't qualify.
- Subdirectory homepage — Google supports favicons for domain and subdomain homepages, not for paths like example.com/news.
- Not recrawled yet — changes appear after Google revisits the homepage.
How do I read the results?
Each icon gets a row with its URL, how it was declared, its status code, format and real pixel size; ICO files list every size they contain. The checks above the table tell you whether at least one icon meets Google's minimum and its recommended size.
What do big sites use?
Almost everyone declares one. In our October 2026 analysis of 315 big-brand homepages (dataset), 90.8% had a <link rel="icon">, 21.3% offered an SVG icon and 66.7% set an Apple touch icon for iPhone home screens.
How do I fix it?
Make a square icon, export it in a few sizes, reference it from your homepage head and make sure robots.txt doesn't block it. The favicon generator produces favicon.ico, PNGs, an Apple touch icon and the HTML in one zip. Then request a recrawl of your homepage with the URL Inspection tool, as Google suggests. Icons for app installs follow the web app manifest sizes, 192 and 512 pixels.
One page checked. What about the rest of your site?
The free SEO audit crawls your site and scores ~90 checks across 7 areas — with the evidence and the fix for each problem.
FAQ
What size should a favicon be for Google?
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Square and at least 8×8 pixels, but Google recommends larger than 48×48 so it looks sharp. A 48×48, 96×96 or SVG icon is a safe choice.
How long does it take for Google to show a new favicon?
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Until Google recrawls your homepage and processes the icon, which can take days to weeks. Requesting indexing of the homepage in Search Console can speed it up.
Is favicon.ico enough?
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Declare your icon explicitly with a link rel="icon" tag on the homepage. Google's guidelines are built around that tag, and browsers use it to pick the best size.
Sources
Related free tools
Favicon Generator
Free favicon generator: favicon.ico, 16–512px PNGs and an Apple touch icon from an image, text or emoji — plus the HTML to paste. No signup.
Meta Tag Checker
Free meta tag checker: see every tag that matters on a URL — title, description, robots, canonical, viewport, Open Graph, X cards — graded with fixes.
OG Image Checker
What OG image size works? 1200×630 px. Check your og:image dimensions, file size, format and crop on Facebook, LinkedIn, X and Slack in one click.
Link Preview
Free link preview tool: see how a URL looks on Facebook, LinkedIn, X, Slack, Discord and iMessage — from the tags each platform actually reads.