Your Favicon and Site Name in Google Results

What the favicon and site name are

Google's favicon documentation says that if your site has a favicon, it "can be included in Google Search results for your site". Its site names documentation describes the other half: when Google lists a page, "it shows the name of the site the page comes from."

Both belong to the whole site. Google points out that the site name "is different from the per-page title links", which come from each page's own title; its title link guide covers those. The image and text people see when a link is shared on social media are a third, separate thing, set with Open Graph tags; see our guide to link previews and Open Graph tags.

The favicon documentation is for organic results only. For logos in Google Ads, Google sends you to its separate business logo specifications.

Setting a favicon for Google

Google's steps are short: create a favicon that follows its guidelines, then add a <link> tag to the header of your home page, for example <link rel="icon" href="/path/to/favicon.ico">.

Google reads two attributes of that tag:

• rel. Google supports icon, the older shortcut icon, apple-touch-icon and apple-touch-icon-precomposed, and says to use "whichever one fits your use case".
• href. The favicon's URL, relative (/smile.ico) or absolute. Google notes that the URL "doesn't need to be hosted on your site", so a favicon on a content delivery network works.

The tag goes on the home page. You can add it to every page so browsers show the icon in tabs everywhere, but Google's search favicon is taken from the home page. For which logo version to use at this size, see the favicon section of our guide to brand assets for websites.

Favicon rules

Google says you "must follow these guidelines" to be eligible, and adds that a favicon "isn't guaranteed to appear in Google Search results, even if all guidelines are met." The guidelines are:

• Square and big enough. The favicon "must be a square (1:1 aspect ratio) that's at least 8x8px", and Google recommends "using a favicon that's larger than 48x48px so that it looks good on various surfaces."
• A supported format. Google lists "BMP, GIF, ICO, PNG, JPEG, PPM, and TIFF". SVG is not on that list.
• A stable URL. "The favicon URL must be stable (don't change the URL frequently)." If you replace the icon, think twice before renaming the file at every release.
• Crawlable. Googlebot must be able to crawl the home page and follow its redirects, and Googlebot-Image must be able to crawl the favicon file. Neither may be blocked by robots.txt "or by other means", so check firewall and bot-filter rules as well as robots.txt.
• Representative. Google asks that the favicon be "visually representative of your website's brand". It won't show a favicon it deems inappropriate and replaces it with a default icon.

How Google picks a site name

Google calls its choice of site names "completely automated". It takes into account content from your home page and references to the site elsewhere on the web. To state a preference, Google says to add WebSite structured data to your home page; it will also consider og:site_name, the <title>, headings and other home page text, but "WebSite structured data is most important".

Google's advice on choosing the name:

• Concise and recognised. Use "a concise, commonly-recognized name for your site", for example "Google" rather than "Google, Inc". There is no length limit, but long names may be cut off on some devices.
• Not generic. Google's example: a name like Best Dentists In Iowa "is unlikely to be selected by our system as a site name, unless that's an extremely well-recognized brand name."
• Consistent. Use the same name in the structured data, the title, headings and other text on the home page.
• Within policy. The name must follow Google's Search content policies and must not be misleading.

Google adds that it "can't manually change automatically selected site names". You can only improve the signals and give it alternatives.

WebSite structured data

The markup needs two properties: name, the site name, and url, the canonical home page of the domain or subdomain. Google accepts JSON-LD, RDFa or microdata, and you only need the markup on the home page, not on every page. A minimal JSON-LD version:

<script type="application/ld+json">
{
  "@context": "https://schema.org",
  "@type": "WebSite",
  "name": "Example Company",
  "alternateName": ["EC", "example.com"],
  "url": "https://www.example.com/"
}
</script>

alternateName is optional. It takes one or more names in order of preference, such as an acronym or short form, which Google can use if your first choice is not available. Google explains that its system "generally won't use the same site name for two different sites that are global in nature", and may find that a site is better known by an acronym. As a backup you can list your domain in all lowercase (example.com, not Example.com) as the last alternative name.

If your home page already has WebSite markup, for example from an SEO plugin, add the name to that same block. Google asks you to avoid "creating an additional WebSite structured data block on your home page if you can help it." For JSON-LD in general, see our guide to structured data basics.

To test it, Google points to a schema validator such as the Schema Markup Validator, because site names "aren't supported in the Rich Results Test." Then use the URL Inspection tool in Search Console to see the home page as Google sees it.

One icon and one name per site

Both features work per hostname. Google Search "only supports one favicon per site", and "only supports one site name per site", where a site is a domain or subdomain:

• example.com and news.example.com can each have their own favicon and site name.
• example.com/news cannot. A subdirectory uses the favicon and name of the host it sits on.
• For site names, Google says subdomains starting with www or m "are generally considered as being equivalent" to the domain.
• If a subdomain's home page has no WebSite markup, Google may fall back to the domain-level site name.

If the same home page is reachable at several addresses, such as HTTP and HTTPS or www and non-www, Google asks for the same structured data on all of them, "not just on the canonical page." A clean redirect to one version, as covered in our website launch checklist, keeps this simple.

When Google shows the wrong one

Changes are not instant. Both documents remind you that crawling "can take anywhere from several days to several weeks". You can request indexing of the home page in the URL Inspection tool to speed things up.

If the favicon is missing or old, check that the <link> tag is on the home page itself, that the file is square, at least 8x8px and in a supported format, and that neither the home page nor the image is blocked for Googlebot or Googlebot-Image.

If the site name is wrong, Google's own steps are to confirm that the WebSite markup holds your preferred name and has no errors, that the rest of the home page uses the same name, that you are not trying to name a subdirectory, and that redirects work and Googlebot can reach their target. Google notes that "the site name will reflect the redirect target" when the home page redirects. After that:

• Add an alternateName. If Google is not confident enough to use your preferred name, it says it "strongly considers this option."
• Add your lowercase domain as the last alternative name.
• As a last resort, Google says you can set the domain itself as the name; its system "will generally select that".

When the home page already shows the right name, internal pages can lag until Google recrawls them.

A checklist

• A square favicon larger than 48x48px, in a format Google lists, at a URL that does not change.
• A <link rel="icon"> tag in the head of the home page.
• Home page and favicon open to Googlebot and Googlebot-Image (robots.txt, firewall, bot filters).
• One WebSite JSON-LD block on the home page with name, url and, if useful, alternateName.
• The same name in the title, headings and og:site_name.
• The same markup on every version of the home page, or redirects to one version.
• Checked with the Schema Markup Validator and URL Inspection, then given time to recrawl.

Frequently asked questions

Why is my favicon not showing in Google Search?

Check that the link tag is on the home page, that the icon is square and at least 8x8px in a format Google supports, and that Googlebot and Googlebot-Image can crawl the home page and the file. Then allow time for a recrawl. Google says a favicon is not guaranteed to appear even when every guideline is met.

Can I use an SVG favicon?

Google's favicon guidelines list BMP, GIF, ICO, PNG, JPEG, PPM and TIFF as the formats Google Search supports, and SVG is not among them. If you use an SVG icon for browsers, link a PNG or ICO version as well.

Can a section of my site have its own favicon or name?

Only if it lives on its own hostname. Google supports one favicon and one site name per domain or subdomain, so news.example.com can have its own, while example.com/news uses the main site's.

Can I ask Google to change my site name by hand?

No. Google says it cannot manually change automatically selected site names. You can improve the WebSite structured data and home page text, and add alternative names for its system to consider.

Do I need WebSite markup on every page?

No. Google says the markup is only needed on the home page of the site. Keep it in one WebSite block there, and use the same markup on duplicate versions of the home page.

Want a site whose favicon, structured data and home page are set up right from the start? See our website development service and all our services, or email [email protected].