How do I install a favicon?

  1. Step 1. Place a favicon on the site
  2. Step 2. Check whether the icon can be accessed by the Yandex robot
  3. Step 3. Check how the favicon is displayed in search results
Note. To display the site favicon in the search results, Yandex downloads it from the HTTPS version of the site, if it is available. If not, the favicon is not displayed.

Step 1. Place a favicon on the site

  1. Place a file with the name favicon in the site's root directory. Pay attention to recommendations.
  2. Add the file link in the HTML code of the main site page, in the head element.
    <head>
    ...
    <link rel="icon" href="https://example.com/favicon.ico" type="image/x-icon">
    ...
</head>
    Attribute Description Possible values
    rel Resource type
    • icon.
    • shortcut icon.
    href File URL To enter a Cyrillic URL of a favicon, use Punycode. For example, for the address https://мой-сайт.рф/favicon.ico, specify https://xn----8sbzclmxk.xn--p1ai/favicon.ico.
    type Data type to be sent. Depends on the file format
    • image/svg+xml for SVG format.
    • image/x-icon or image/vnd.microsoft.icon for ICO format.
    • image/gif for GIF format.
    • image/jpeg for JPEG format.
    • image/png for PNG format.
    • image/bmp for BMP format.
    Attribute Description Possible values
    rel Resource type
    • icon.
    • shortcut icon.
    href File URL To enter a Cyrillic URL of a favicon, use Punycode. For example, for the address https://мой-сайт.рф/favicon.ico, specify https://xn----8sbzclmxk.xn--p1ai/favicon.ico.
    type Data type to be sent. Depends on the file format
    • image/svg+xml for SVG format.
    • image/x-icon or image/vnd.microsoft.icon for ICO format.
    • image/gif for GIF format.
    • image/jpeg for JPEG format.
    • image/png for PNG format.
    • image/bmp for BMP format.

    If the link to the favicon is repeated several times in the HTML code, the robot chooses one of the icons.

  3. Check if the favicon is displayed in the browser's address bar when viewing the site pages.

Step 2. Check whether the icon can be accessed by the Yandex robot

  1. Make sure that:

    • The file is accessible via a direct link (server response 200 OK). Use the Server response check tool.
    • The file is not prohibited for indexing (for example, with a Disallow directive in the robots.txt file). Check indexing prohibitions for the file itself and for the directory it is located in.
  2. Make changes if necessary.

  3. Check if the robot loaded the file. This may happen when the robot visits your site. A few days after adding the favicon to the site, go to Diagnostics → Site diagnostics in Yandex.Webmaster. If you see a warning about favicon problems in the Possible problems section, follow the instructions:

    Error Solution
    The file responds with an HTTP code other than 200 OK Check the server response. The response should be 200 OK. For other response statuses, see Server response check.
    The file redirects to another URL
    Incorrect data type Check the value of the type parameter in the file URL. It should match the file format.
    Error Solution
    The file responds with an HTTP code other than 200 OK Check the server response. The response should be 200 OK. For other response statuses, see Server response check.
    The file redirects to another URL
    Incorrect data type Check the value of the type parameter in the file URL. It should match the file format.

    To make sure the favicon is loaded, follow the link View list of everything being checked by Webmaster and find the favicon warning on the page that opens. If it shows Everything is OK, it means that the robot processed the file.

Step 3. Check how the favicon is displayed in search results

If the robot downloaded the favicon, it will appear in search results within two weeks. How can favicons be displayed in Yandex services?

Tell us what your question is about so we can direct you to the right specialist:

If you followed all the guidelines for favicon placement, it should be indexed and appear in search results within about two weeks.


The favicon might disappear from search if it wasn't added to the database during the latest update. This is possible if the favicon, site, or host was unavailable during indexing by the special robot.

Also make sure that the favicon is placed correctly. If it is specified correctly, wait for the next update of the favicon database, which takes about two weeks.


This may happen if:

  • Different site favicons are placed at different URLs. If a site can be accessed at URLs with or without the "www" prefix and over both the HTTPS and HTTP protocols, make sure that the favicon is the same everywhere, or that it is the correct one to index for each of the sites.
  • The site is temporarily unavailable. In this case, the robot might download the hosting favicon from the site's parked page.

If these causes are resolved and you've followed the guidelines for placing the favicon, the changes will appear in search results within two weeks after they are crawled by the robot.