Favico Question

[wrmineo]

Okay, dumb blonde question coming your way ....

I'm in the process of creating some shortcut icons for some of my websites and pages.

Can I call the icon whatever I want and simply modify the code
<link rel="shortcut icon" href="/favico.ico">
to something more content and keyword relevant to my site and pages? Must it be called "favico.ico"? Can I call e.g. "keyword.ico" - something relevant? If so, might this come back to haunt?

I've found more and more hits to my website coming from the engines' image results which got me thinking about this.

Your thoughts and input would be greatly appreciated, especially, if you could provide sources and experiences for them.

Thanks!
w®m

[jdiben]

You can name the icon whatever you like and modify the <link rel="shortcut icon" href="/favico.ico"> code. I don't know how or if it will effect search engines but it can be done.

[brian.mark]

There are quite a few sites out there that are doing "Icon" searches. www.iconsurf.com is an example. If you don't name it the standard favicon.ico, it won't find your icon.

An attractive icon can get you some extra visitors as these sites gain some popularity. I came across a directory that was showing icons (if I find it again, I'll let you know) as long as it was the standard naming convention - maybe something for DMOZ to consider (not sure if they'll hear me or not, but I'll say it here and pretend they do.)

I don't think any search engine is going to show icons right now with rankings based on what you titled the icon. I'd just go with the standard if I were you.

Brian.

[mannequin-lady]

Since favicons always show up in FireFox, how come they only show up in I.E. when you bookmark a site?

[brian.mark]

Since favicons always show up in FireFox, how come they only show up in I.E. when you bookmark a site?

IE6 has been around for how long? They hadn't thought that far in advance when it came out. It was originally thought to be your "Favorites" icon (favorites being another name for bookmarks), so they implemented it how they thought it should work. FireFox just took the idea and improved upon it. I'd expect IE 7 to catch up on that front.

Brian.

[mannequin-lady]

The weirdest thing is that a few hours after I posted this the favicon showed up in IE's address bar, but only on one of my computers.

IE 7.0 will probably take a separate hard drive. :-)

[brian.mark]

The weirdest thing is that a few hours after I posted this the favicon showed up in IE's address bar, but only on one of my computers.

IE 7.0 will probably take a separate hard drive. :-)

Separate hard drive AND a spare processor. LOL. Don't forget the 12 GB of RAM.

Of course, there really aren't any programs that don't want that much computer any more. I had to upgrade to a SCSI RAID system to make my audio recording software work decent. Guess that's the price I have to pay for DVD quality sound and 8 tracks recording at a time.

I just tried IE myself (been a while) and didn't see any icons next to the address, then I bookmarked it and it was there. What a waste of a perfectly good icon space if you don't have the site bookmarked.

Brian.

[mannequin-lady]

Separate hard drive AND a spare processor. LOL. Don't forget the 12 GB of RAM.

I forgot that "minor" detail!

I had to upgrade to a SCSI RAID system to make my audio recording software work decent. Guess that's the price I have to pay for DVD quality sound and 8 tracks recording at a time.

Some sacrifice! You must have some system going there!

I had to buy a new computer because the two others couldn't handle all the programs I needed open simulaneously for my website work. Another sacrifice! LOL! I saved a bit of desktop space by buying a KVM switch.

This has two great benefits - I share the monitor, KB and mouse with the two main desktop computers AND I'm not disturbed when I'm on the new computer working on my websites.

I just tried IE myself (been a while) and didn't see any icons next to the address, then I bookmarked it and it was there. What a waste of a perfectly good icon space if you don't have the site bookmarked.
Brian.

It's too bad it doesn't show up in IE (consistently).

Steph