Adventures with favicons
Have you thought that it would be fun to add a favicon to your website? (That’s that little icon up in the title bar just before your site name – all the “big kids” have them.)
I thought it would be fun, and I read about how to install them, but didn’t have a program to create a graphic with an .ico extension. I spent part of one day looking around and then decided that I didn’t need it after all.
So, yesterday when I saw a Tweet on Twitter about how to install a favicon on WordPress, I followed the link. And there – at the end of the article – was a link to a site where I could create one.
Such fun!
I went there, created the favicon, and installed it on www.marte-cliff.com per instructions. It worked perfectly, but I decided I didn’t like it. My favicon was purple, but my website is mostly blue.
So I tried to change it – and so far, I can’t do that. Is this strange, or what?
I even deleted the favicon entirely, removed the coding from the page and sent it out again. But when I refreshed my page, the purple favicon is still there. And when I replaced the coding and sent the new favicon out, the original one is still there.
Not being a web tech, I can’t figure out how this can be. If I change something else on my site and send it back out, it changes. Why not this?
The bottom line is – this works. But be sure you have the image you want before you send it out because you might be stuck with it. Here’s the link for creating your favicon: http://www.prodraw.net/favicon/index.php
You’ll need an image to upload before you get there. Remember this is a tiny thing – 16 X 16 pixels, and choose your image accordingly. You can have anything you want, because you choose an image from your computer to upload.
Here’s the link with instructions for adding it to WordPress: http://techravings.info/2009/06/easiest-way-to-add-favicon-to-a-wordpress-blog.html
I haven’t tried that one yet. I did start, but when I saw that it was going to take several steps I decided to leave it for another day. This Hughes Net connection takes so long to open new pages, and I’m so tech illiterate that I could see it taking me an hour or more.
If you have high speed and are technologically literate, it might take the 10 minutes “as advertised.”
Oh, and if you happen to go to my website and YOU see a blue favicon, let me know would you? Maybe this is just something about my computer that makes the purple one get “stuck.”
Posted: June 13th, 2009 under web copy, web marketing.
Tags: favicon, web pages, wordpress