Google working on fix for broken favicons in Google Search

Google confirmed it is working on fixing a bug with favicons not showing properly within Google Search. Rajan Patel, Google’s VP, Engineering for Search, said “It’s an issue on our end. We identified the issue and we’re addressing it as quickly as we can. Sorry that this happened.”

The issue started earlier this week, when I saw a significant spike in complaints about favicons disappearing from the Google Search result snippets.

What it looks like. Here are some screenshots of Google showing a default globe icon, which means Google is not able to pull the proper favicon from the site.

This was already resolved:

But there are still sites, like LinkedIn, that are not showing the proper favicons:

Fix coming. Again, Rajan Patel, Google’s VP, Engineering for Search, said “It’s an issue on our end. We identified the issue and we’re addressing it as quickly as we can. Sorry that this happened.”

Why we care. Having a unique favicon in the Google Search results can help make your search result snippet stand out from the rest. Having a default icon can potentially lead to fewer clicks on the search listing.

Google is working on a fix and we can see that some favicons are already resolved. Hopefully the fix will roll out soon, but it has been almost a full week since the issue started.