Why Your Favicon Should Be Small and Cacheable

Web browsers use favicons to display an icon or image for web pages in title bars, browser tabs, bookmarks and other areas to help quickly identify websites in areas where information is limited. Web browsers will attempt to download the favicon for every web page they visit and having a larger than necessary favicon can slow down website performance by making web browsers wait for the favicon to download. In addition, having favicons not be marked as cacheable makes web browsers download the favicon for every single page visited on a given web site.

For better website loading performance, use small favicons and long cache headers. Smaller favicons will load much more quickly and using long cache headers will make sure favicons are saved by web browsers and caching services for an extended period of time.  This improves performance for repeat visitors and subsequent page loads on your website.