Favicon not showing – what to do?

Why do I still see the old favicon?

It's almost always the browser cache. Browsers keep favicons very stubbornly, often separately from the page cache.

1. Hard reload: Ctrl + F5 (Windows) or Cmd + Shift + R (Mac).
2. Open the favicon directly: open https://your-domain.com/favicon.ico, reload it, then reload the page.
3. New tab or private window: shows the current state without the old cache. Safari keeps favicons particularly long – if in doubt, quit Safari completely once.

No favicon shows at all

• Check the paths: open the files directly, e.g. /favicon.ico and /apple-touch-icon.png. A 404 error means the files aren't where the code expects them.
• Code in the <head>? The <link> lines must be inside the <head>, not the <body>.
• The CMS outputs its own icons: WordPress (site icon), themes or plugins often add their own favicon tags. Use only one source.
• CDN or server cache: if you use Cloudflare or a cache plugin, purge the cache after replacing the files.
• File types: some servers deliver .webmanifest or .ico with the wrong type. Correct are application/manifest+json and image/x-icon or image/vnd.microsoft.icon.

And in Google Search?

Google picks up a new favicon only after recrawling the page – this can take days to weeks. Requirements: the favicon is accessible to Googlebot, square and at least 48 × 48 px (or a multiple of it). The package from faviconlion meets these requirements.