Google clarified its favicon rules, supported formats are now listed in the document
Google updated the developer documentation for the site icon shown in search results and listed the supported file formats: BMP, GIF, ICO, PNG, JPEG, PPM and TIFF. The document also sets out the single icon per site rule, the square ratio and 8 pixel minimum, and the requirement that crawlers not be blocked.
Google added supported formats to the favicon document
Google updated its developer documentation on the site icon shown in search results. Search Engine Roundtable's daily recap dated August 28, 2026 reported the change as Google listing the supported favicon file formats.
Per Google's document the supported formats are BMP, GIF, ICO, PNG, JPEG, PPM and TIFF.
The document applies to organic search results. Business logos in Google Ads results have their own separate specification.
One icon, one hostname, a square ratio
Per the document, making a site eligible for a favicon starts with adding a link tag to the head of the home page. Google supports the rel value icon, the historical alternative shortcut icon, plus apple-touch-icon and apple-touch-icon-precomposed.
The file address can be relative or absolute and does not have to be hosted on your site; it can sit on a content delivery network.
The most critical rule is the single icon rule: Google Search supports only one favicon per site, where a site is defined by hostname. So example.com and news.example.com can use two different icons, while example.com/news is a subdirectory and cannot take its own.
Crawlability is another condition. Googlebot-Image must be able to crawl the favicon file and Googlebot must be able to crawl the home page; neither may be blocked.
The visual conditions are explicit: the favicon must be square, at least 8x8 pixels, and Google recommends using one larger than 48x48 pixels. The document asks that the favicon URL stay stable and not be changed frequently.
Google does not show icons it deems inappropriate and replaces them with a default. Seeing a change requires waiting for a recrawl, which per the document can take anywhere from several days to several weeks, and indexing can be requested with the URL Inspection tool. Even with every condition met, a favicon is not guaranteed to appear.
The only visual element in a results list
The assessment in this section is ours. The favicon is the only visual element of a brand in search results. In a list where the text all reads alike, a recognized icon is where the eye stops while scanning.
That has a measurable effect: if the user recognizes the brand visually while reading the list, the decision takes less time. The effect is not large but it is free.
The second point is the single icon rule. In setups using subdomains this touches brand consistency directly. A blog on its own subdomain can take its own icon, which can be an opportunity or an inconsistency.
The third point is blocking. On sites with strict rules against bot traffic, blocking Googlebot-Image can make the favicon disappear. The cause of a visual loss is often not a visual mistake but an access rule.
The fourth is stability. Changing the icon address frequently means Google has to process it again. Keeping the file name during a brand refresh removes an unnecessary wait.
What it means for businesses in Türkiye
The assessment below does not appear in the source, it is our reading. The document is global and carries no rule specific to Türkiye.
What we see most often in the field is the favicon being the last and most rushed step of an identity project. The logo file gets shrunk and dropped in, and at 16 pixels nothing is legible.
The practical rule is this: a favicon is not a shrunk logo, it is an independent design of the logo's most distinctive part. A long wordmark does not fit into 16 pixels, a first letter or an emblem does.
The second point is subdomains. Keeping blog, shop and support pages on separate subdomains is common in Türkiye. Since each can take its own icon, keeping brand coherence requires a deliberate choice.
The third point is bot rules. Aggressive blocking rules added for security or cost are a frequent cause of visibility loss here. Verifying that Googlebot and Googlebot-Image can reach the home page and the icon file is a one minute job.
The fourth is expectation. Expecting the result to appear immediately after changing the icon is wrong; per the document it can take weeks.
The UNALSOFT take
In logo and brand identity work we place favicon design inside the identity project rather than at the end of the delivery list. The reason is simple: the size at which a brand is seen most often is 16 pixels. What appears in a tab, in bookmarks and in a search result is not the logo, it is that small square. So we treat producing a separate small size drawing alongside the main logo as standard. On the technical side we check three things: that the icon is square, that its address stays stable, and that crawlers are not blocked from that file. Two of those three are the job of a server setting rather than a designer. Most of the missing favicons we see in the field come from a closed door rather than a bad design.
Is your brand recognizable at 16 pixels?
Let us build the identity together with how it behaves at small sizes.