HTML & encoding
Favicon in a format Google Search does not support
One of the 136 checks Lala SEO runs on every page of a site in a free audit.
- How serious
- Worth fixing. Weakens how Google reads or shows the page. Fix after the serious ones.
- Based on
- Google's own documentation
What is wrong
Your website's favicon—the small icon that appears next to your site name in browser tabs and search results—is in a file format that Google Search does not recognise. Google supports ICO, PNG, GIF, JPEG and SVG formats, but your site is using something else.
Why it costs you
When Google cannot read your favicon, it will not display it next to your site in search results. This is purely visual, so it does not stop people finding your pages. However, a missing icon makes your result look incomplete compared to competitors, and users may be slightly less likely to click through.
How to fix it
Replace your favicon with a supported format. The simplest approach is to save a square image as a PNG file, name it `favicon.png`, upload it to your site root, and add this line to the `<head>` section of your page template: `<link rel="icon" href="/favicon.png" type="image/png">`. If you already have a favicon in an unsupported format, convert it using any free image converter online, then update the link.
What the audit tests
- The home page favicon is in a file format Google Search supports
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