Google: Favicons No Longer Need To Be Hosted On Same Domain

Google has updated its favicon search developer documentation to now say that you don’t need to host the favicon in the same domain in order to be eligible for a favicon in Google Search results. Google removed the line, “the URL must be in the same domain as the home page.”

Here is a screenshot of what changed in the old documentation:

Google posted “February 23: Removed the hosting location requirement from the favicon documentation; you don’t need to host the favicon in the same domain in order to be eligible for a favicon in Google Search results.”

So you no longer need to ensure the favicon is on the same domain as the site to be eligible to show a favicon in Google Search.

This is really cool & @okaylizzi is awesome for looking into this. It could save people a lot of wasted time. I noticed favicons *were* showing up when NOT hosted on the same domain as the homepage. Ends up you can host them anywhere. So that’s one less thing to worry about. 🙂 pic.twitter.com/Afa1JsK9jg

— Glenn Gabe (@glenngabe) February 23, 2023

Forum discussion at Twitter.