You've added a favicon to your website, but it's not appearing in the browser tab. Frustrating? Let's go through the 7 most common reasons and their fixes, ordered from most to least likely.

Short answer: if your favicon is not showing, it is almost always one of three things: the browser cached the old (or missing) icon, the <link rel="icon"> path is wrong, or the file at that path returns a 404 or the wrong MIME type. Open the icon URL directly in a new tab (e.g. https://yoursite.com/favicon.ico); if it loads, hard-refresh or add ?v=2 to the href; if it doesn't, fix the path or upload the file.

Jump to Your Exact Symptom

The seven causes below apply to every browser. If your problem matches one of these specific situations, the dedicated guide will get you there faster:

1. Browser Cache (Most Common)

Favicons are cached more aggressively than almost anything else in the browser. Even after you update the file, the browser may show the old one (or no icon) for hours or days.

Fix:

2. Wrong File Path

The most common coding error. The browser can't find your favicon file because the path is incorrect.

Fix:

3. Missing or Incorrect HTML Tags

The <link> tag might be missing, malformed, or placed outside the <head>.

Fix: Ensure this code is inside your <head> tags:

<link rel="icon" type="image/x-icon" href="/favicon.ico">

Common mistakes:

4. Corrupt or Invalid File

The file might look fine on your computer but be corrupted or in the wrong format.

Fix:

5. Server Not Serving the Correct MIME Type

Some servers don't recognize .ico files and serve them with the wrong Content-Type header.

Fix: Check the response headers in DevTools (Network tab). The MIME type should be:

For Apache, add to .htaccess:

AddType image/x-icon .ico

For Nginx:

location ~* \.ico$ {
    add_header Content-Type image/x-icon;
}

6. HTTPS / Mixed Content Issues

If your site is on HTTPS but the favicon URL uses HTTP, the browser will block it silently.

Fix:

7. Favicon Not Showing in Google Search Results

Your favicon appears in the browser tab but not in Google search results. This is a separate issue.

Google's favicon requirements:

Fix: Use the Google Search Console URL Inspection tool to request re-crawling of your homepage.

Quick Debugging Checklist

  1. Open https://yoursite.com/favicon.ico — does it load?
  2. Open DevTools → Network tab → reload → filter by "favicon" — any 404 errors?
  3. Check the HTML source — is the <link> tag correct and inside <head>?
  4. Try Incognito mode — does it show there?
  5. Check another browser — is it browser-specific?

Favicon Not Showing in Safari or on iPhone

Safari keeps its own long-lived icon cache and prefers an apple-touch-icon (180×180 PNG) for bookmarks and the home screen. If Safari still shows a blank or letter icon, add the touch icon, then clear Safari's cache. See favicon on iOS Safari for the exact tags.

Frequently Asked Questions

Why is my favicon not showing in Chrome?

Chrome caches favicons aggressively, sometimes for days. Open the icon URL directly to confirm it loads, then add a version query (/favicon.ico?v=2) to the link tag or clear the cache. More fixes: favicon not showing in Chrome.

Why does Google not show my favicon in search results?

Google needs a square icon of at least 48×48 px, declared with a <link rel="icon"> tag on the homepage, and crawlable by Googlebot. It can take days to weeks to update. See favicon not showing in Google.

How long does it take for a new favicon to show?

In the browser, immediately after a cache-busting refresh. In Google Search, usually a few days to a few weeks after Googlebot recrawls your homepage.

How can I check whether my favicon is set up correctly?

Enter your domain in the favicon downloader: it lists every icon your site exposes, its size and URL, so you can spot missing or broken files instantly.