Googlebot Must Now Follow Redirects to Find Your Favicon

Google updated its favicon documentation on October 27, and Googlebot must be able to follow any redirects from your home page to the page that declares your favicon.

Is your favicon missing from search results? Start with that line.

What the new wording says

The crawling rule in Google’s favicon guidelines for Search now has two jobs.

One crawler fetches your home page and follows whatever it redirects to. Another, Googlebot-Image, fetches the icon itself. Neither URL can be blocked, by robots.txt or by any other means.

The old version already asked for both crawlers. So what’s new? The redirect part, according to Search Engine Roundtable’s comparison of the old and new text.

Barry Schwartz calls it a clarification.

But the path to it is now written down.

Why Google rewrote it

John Mueller gave an unusual reason.

He said Google saw that “AI systems didn’t understand exactly how to investigate this.”

Google then tried the new wording as a prompt, and he said it worked much better. He gave an example of that kind of prompt: asking an AI system to work from the guidelines and investigate why a site’s favicon wasn’t showing up in Google Search.

Then there’s your own setup.

Does your root domain bounce visitors to one of these?

• /en/ or a www host
• a country page

Every hop in that chain has to be reachable by Googlebot for your favicon to show, which the docs now spell out.

What to check on your site

Here are the checks I’d run, based on the guidelines:

• Request your bare domain and write down every redirect it passes through.
• Make sure robots.txt lets crawlers reach each URL on that path, plus the icon.
• Use a square icon, 8x8px at minimum, though Google suggests going above 48x48px.
• Leave the icon URL alone where you can, since Google asks sites not to change it often.

Each hostname gets one favicon, so www.example.com and code.example.com can each have a different one.

Why it matters

A favicon is the small icon you can show in Google Search results, and it helps users spot your site quickly. Google replaces any favicon it considers inappropriate with a default one, so keep yours clean and on-brand.

My guess is most broken favicons trace back to setups nobody remembers building. Google says neither URL can be blocked from crawling, whether by robots.txt or by other means. So check every layer that sits in front of them.

Behind Cloudflare or another bot shield?

In practice, open URL Inspection in Search Console for your home page and see what Googlebot actually received.

Patience, though. Google says a recrawl can take several days to several weeks, and you can ask for indexing from that same tool.

Still, the Mueller remark is what sticks with me.

So Google changed one bullet after seeing AI systems struggle to investigate a missing favicon.

Your own docs and FAQs could use the same treatment.

Common Questions

Why is my favicon not showing in Google Search results?

Google’s guidelines require the crawler to reach your home page and follow its redirects, and Googlebot-Image to fetch the icon. Check that none of those URLs is blocked by robots.txt or by other means.

Does Google follow redirects from the home page to find a favicon?

Yes. Since the October 27, 2026 update, Google’s documentation says Googlebot must be able to follow any redirects from the home page to the page where the favicon is specified.

What size should a favicon be for Google Search?

At least 8x8 pixels and square. Google recommends a favicon larger than 48x48 pixels so it looks good across several platforms.