Favicon.ico questions

[qwerty]

When a user bookmarks a page, they're requesting the file favicon.ico, whether that file exists or not. If the file does exist, I assume it gets saved to their favorites folder (if they use IE).

My question is about what I'm really seeing when I see favicon.ico in my server logs. Is that always a new user bookmarking a page, or can it be someone who already had the page bookmarked going there from their bookmark?

[ihelpyou]

I'm pretty sure it's the latter. They hit their favorites file and click your listing in it.

[McFox]

It's someone bookmarking the site.

McFox

[JuniorHarris]

Most likely this is from the page being bookmarked, yet there could also be other reasons for the request. A bookmark would be the most likely and common, but there are other possibilities too. I think the mozilla browser displays the favicon in the address bar if one exists when browsing the page....so this too could create a request.

[qwerty]

I've noticed that, JH.

That means that I can't know for sure if a request for the file means that someone has bookmarked the site. Does anyone know of a way to track the creation of a bookmark? I'd rather not resort to sticking a javascript on every page, and I doubt that would solve my problem -- people could still hit ctrl-D or Favorites | Add to Favorites, even if I give them an easy "Add to Your Favorites" link.

I think I may have to settle for assuming that most of the requests I see for the file are new bookmarks.

[JuniorHarris]

Would it be possible to differentiate between the IE and Mozilla users? If so, you could make the assumption that the IE users are bookmarking, whereas the Mozilla users are only browsing. Not an exact science...but it might get you closer.

[qwerty]

It would be possible if I had the money to buy NetTracker or some such thing, but I'm using a combination of a couple of free applications.

With what I've got to work with, I'd have to open the raw log files, search on favicon.ico, and explore the information about the user -- what user-agent they were using, whether this was the first file they requested, etc.

I don't think it's important enough to devote an hour or so every day to tracking down 25 requests for a file. Ah well... thanks for the help.

[JuniorHarris]

Agreed, some things just are not worth the time...though it might be nice to know. Depending on what you are doing, it's probably safe to make the assumption that those are bookmarks. They could be multiplied by some fudge factor just to keep it honest. However, a metric is a metric, and once you establish a baseline (including fudge or not) it should still be able to provide some valuable feedback.

[Bernard]

If your stats package shows you % totals for which browsers were used to access your site (which is a pretty common report even among free stats systems), you could apply that % to the favicon.ico requests for a crude metric.

Ie. 75% IE visits X 12 favicon.ico requests ~= 9 IE bookmarks

[McFox]

I tried and tested the favicon.ico against web stats.

I wondered if clearing out the browser history and cache would result in another call being made to the favicon file when a user who had bookmarked my site, revisited.

Since I was building a new site at the time, had just came online but not submitted, and was, therefore, the only traffic, I tested the favicon.ico file to see when it was called by a browser.

The only time the favicon.ico file was listed in the stats as "requested" was when the page was bookmarked, even if the browser displayed favicons in the address bar or was previously listed as a bookmarked file.

McFox

[qwerty]

Cool! Thanks, McFox. Very useful information.

[polarmate]

:hi: McFox! Welcome to the forums!
I never really paid much attention to the favicon.ico file or the 404s before. I think I will now!
The only time the favicon.ico file was listed in the stats as "requested" was when the page was bookmarked, even if the browser displayed favicons in the address bar or was previously listed as a bookmarked file.
This is very interesting. The part I cannot understand is why the logs don't show the request when the icon is displayed in the address bar sans any bookmark activity. Is this done through a special type of browser header request that the logs don't show?

[projectphp]

Not always true. I use Opera 7.11, and whenever I load a page, it looks for the favicon so that it can use it as a place holder for each tab. (see attached image)

So, ever site I go to gets a favicon request, none of which I probably bookmark!!!

<edit>I am sure Opera is a bit different to Mozilla, as I have seen the requests in my own logs (from my own machine)</edit>

[polarmate]

Originally posted by projectphp
Not always true. I use Opera 7.11, and whenever I load a page, it looks for the favicon so that it can use it as a place holder for each tab. (see attached image)

So, ever site I go to gets a favicon request, none of which I probably bookmark!!!
I don't think we're questioning that there is a request for the file. There has to be a request, given that it shows in the address bar.

Accorsing to McFox, the request appears in the logs only when the page is bookmarked.

Do you see the request in your logs when the page is accessed?

I need to look through my logs...

[qwerty]

What I don't get is that if it doesn't show up in the logs as a request when a user goes to a site that they've bookmarked, where does it come from? I've just searched my hard drive for favicon.ico, and the only results were for local versions of sites I've designed. I would have expected that if I bookmarked a site that had a favicon, I would have saved a copy locally, or at least cached a copy.

[JuniorHarris]

I would expect a request be reflected for any initial display, be it a bookmark or a display in the address bar. In order to display an image, it would have to request it. Subsequent requests may be different as a result of caching algorithms, either on the server, ISP, and/or within the browser itself.

I did a quick single test using Mozilla just browsing a page (no bookmark), and I did find a favicon.ico request in the logs with a status 200. However this was not much of a test, but it does reflect that a favicon.ico request could appear without a page being bookmarked.

[JuniorHarris]

Again this was not a conclusive test, but I bookmarked a site and found that the favicon.ico shows up in the temporary internet files directory. The default file name is favicion.ico, but that can be changed.

How to Add a Shortcut Icon to a Web Page (http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/workshop/Author/dhtml/howto/ShortcutIcon.asp)

[qwerty]

<HEAD>
<LINK REL="SHORTCUT ICON" HREF="http://www.mydomain.com/myicon.ico">
<TITLE>My Title</TITLE>
</HEAD>

I've never understood why MS suggests that. AFAIK it's completely superfluous code, unless a webmaster chooses to give the favicon a name other than favicon.ico.

Under normal circumstances, when a user bookmarks a site, a request is made for favicon.ico. If it exists, it's grabbed. If not, the browser's default favicon is used. So why add the code?

[bwelford]

By the way, is there a free way of making your own favicon. I did some quick checking and it seemed that you had to use the shareware from the favicon organization. However I seemed to be always diverted to paying options.

[qwerty]

I made mine using a free trial version of Icon Forge, but I just went out to their site and didn't see that option anywhere.

http://www.cursorarts.com/ca_if.html

[Mertu]

I think you can make them them using Irfanview (http://irfanview.com/). Great free little program that I'd gladly register if he had some system other than mailing cash.