Favicons - How to create and use a favicon in your website.

Favicon? Have you ever heard of a favicon? It stands for "favorites icon." It's just a simple little image file you can add to your site to help make it stand out from the rest.

When you have a favicon on your server every time someone adds your site to their favorites list your little icon will be displayed instead of the standard Internet Explorer icon. This makes it easier to see your site among all the others they have saved. It really stands out with Netscape and FireFox browsers too. When they click on your site from the favorites folder, your favicon will also appear in the address bar too.

Try it.

Bookmark this page and then go back to your favorites folder. Look for my little "cdm" favicon. Hopefully you will be able to see it easily. Internet Explorer automatically looks for the favicon file when it bookmarks a page. Don't worry, if you don't have one your visitors won't get an error message or anything, it's just a plus if you do.

You will notice as you look through your bookmarked pages that most sites don't have one, even the big names.

So how do you make one? It's really pretty easy if you have graphics software. Just make a 32 x 32 pixel bitmap image of your logo or any other image you want. Don't make it too complicated because the image you end up with is pretty small.

You will need to save the image as an icon with the .ico extension. You can't just save a bitmap as an ico file, you have to convert it into an authentic icon format. You can download a bitmap to icon freeware program called BMP2ICO. I found a place here, or just do a search. It is available all over. It will make you a cute little 16 x16 pixel icon.

After you have created your masterpiece you will need to name it favicon.ico and publish it to the root directory of your site. This is most likely where your default page is. Make sure you upload it in binary format, just like any other image.

That's it. No other html is needed.

I'm not sure if this will work if your page is part of a mall like TIAS or Ruby Lane, so ask and find out first. If you want to read more about favicons and see some examples you can go to this favicon site. They will try and get you to buy their software. It's up to you. If you want your own favicon but are graphically challenged (or just don't have the time to mess around with it) send me an email. I will make one for you for $10.