Favicon Not Showing? Troubleshooting Guide
A favicon that worked yesterday can vanish after a deploy, look stale in Google for weeks, or never appear on mobile. Most issues are path, cache, or format problems — not your logo file.
Quick answer
If your favicon is not showing, confirm favicon.ico loads at your site root, verify <link rel="icon"> paths on the live URL, and hard-refresh to bust browser cache — then use the Favicon Checker to see which paths resolve.
Check favicons on any website
Install the FetchFavicon Chrome Extension to extract, preview, and validate favicons instantly.
Start by confirming the file actually loads on your live domain. Paste your URL into a favicon checker to see whether /favicon.ico, PNG variants, and apple-touch-icon paths return 200 or 404. If the checker finds nothing, the browser will too.
Browsers cache favicons aggressively — sometimes for days. After uploading a new icon, hard-refresh (Ctrl+Shift+R / Cmd+Shift+R) or append ?v=2 to your favicon URL once to bust the cache. Incognito mode is the fastest sanity check.
Wrong paths are the next most common cause. <link rel="icon"> must point to a URL that exists after deploy. A file in /public on your machine is useless if production serves from a CDN subdirectory or a different root.
If favicon.ico is missing or corrupt, Windows shortcuts and legacy browsers show a blank icon. Regenerate a multi-size .ico from your PNG or SVG — a renamed .png file is not a valid ICO.
Google Search can take days or weeks to refresh SERP favicons after you fix the file. Googlebot-Image must crawl a reachable icon linked from your homepage, at least 48×48. Check Search Console and robots.txt if the tab icon works but Google still shows the old one.
For format and size issues, ship a multi-size favicon.ico plus PNG fallbacks. See our best favicon format and favicon sizes explained guides if you are unsure which files to deploy.
How it works
- 1
Check which paths load
Run your live URL through the Favicon Checker to see which icon files resolve.
- 2
Fix paths and regenerate
Deploy favicon.ico at the root, fix <link> tags, and regenerate with the Favicon Generator or PNG to ICO if needed.
- 3
Bust cache and re-verify
Hard-refresh, add ?v=2 once, then re-test in an incognito window and in Google Search after crawl.
Try it now
Check your favicon now
Favicon CheckerFAQ
Why is my favicon not showing?+
The file is missing at the URL browsers request, the <link rel="icon"> path is wrong, or an old version is stuck in browser cache. Verify the live URL with a favicon checker first.
Why is my favicon not updating after I changed it?+
Browsers cache favicons heavily. Hard-refresh, clear site data, or add ?v=2 to the favicon URL. CDN caches may also serve the old file until purged.
Why is my favicon missing in Google search results?+
Google needs a crawlable icon linked from your homepage, at least 48×48, and access for Googlebot-Image. SERP updates can lag days or weeks after you fix the file.
How do I fix favicon cache issues?+
Rename the file or append a query string (?v=2), purge your CDN, then hard-refresh. Test in a private window to confirm the new icon loads.
Why is favicon.ico not working?+
Common causes: the file was not deployed to the site root, it is a renamed PNG instead of a real ICO, it lacks required sizes, or the server returns the wrong MIME type.