Contents
1. Let's start with an inconspicuous anomaly.
For many individual bloggers, the issue of their websites not displaying favicons in Bing search results is probably quite "familiar." You don't even need to deliberately research it; a simple Google search for relevant keywords will yield a plethora of similar discussions, tutorials, and even various "solutions":
Because this problem has been around for a long time, people have become somewhat "taken for granted" about it – as if they've assumed it's just a stubborn little problem, and that it's fine if it can be solved, but if it can't, so be it.
In terms of practical impact, it's not a big problem; it won't affect indexing or directly impact ranking. However, from an aesthetic perspective, it just feels a bit lacking: on the same page of search results, other sites have clear icons, while yours is just a default gray globe icon, which gives off a somewhat unprofessional and low-end impression.
What's even more interesting is that this issue also carries a hint of "platform differences." Often, the same website's favicon works perfectly fine in Google, but disappears entirely when viewed on Bing. For example, the website of "Benben," the blogger who inspired me to start blogging, appears perfectly normal in Google search results:
However, the same site appears differently on Bing—the icon is gone, leaving only Bing's default gray globe icon:
If it were just an isolated case, it would be easier to understand. But when you observe more closely, you'll find that this isn't an isolated phenomenon, but rather a fairly common situation. I myself had the same problem before; my website never had a favicon on Bing. However, recently, one day, I searched for my blog address on Bing for the first time in a long while, and found that the icon had "quietly appeared" without my noticing.
The entire process involved no targeted optimizations or deliberate attempts to "fix" the problem; it simply appeared naturally. This is what I find interesting—if it's neither a simple configuration issue nor a deterministic "fix process," then the underlying reason is likely not purely technical. Hence, this article.
This time, I don't plan to write a tutorial like "How to solve the problem of favicon not displaying." Instead, I want to take a different approach, combining my own observations and some reproducible phenomena to carefully break it down:What logic does Bing use to decide whether or not to display a favicon on a website?
Once you figure this out, you'll find that it might not be an "icon display issue," but rather something closer to—How Bing determines whether your website "looks like a website that deserves to be taken seriously".
2. Those seemingly reasonable explanations
Before truly considering this problem, I, like most people, subconsciously looked for "ready-made answers." After all, these kinds of problems are so common—a simple search on a search engine will yield all sorts of "experience summaries" and "solutions." After reading through many, you'll find that these statements can be roughly categorized into several types, and each type sounds quite reasonable.
For example, some people might say that this isTime issue—When a new website first launches, Bing hasn't fully recognized its structure yet, so it won't display the favicon. Once it's been indexed long enough, everything will "automatically return to normal." Some people attribute the reason to…Content ScaleToo few articles and too infrequent updates will lead to search engines not giving the site enough attention; if we go a step further in the "SEO" direction, some people will even compare it to...Site weight, backlinks, site ratingThese factors are linked, suggesting that a favicon will only appear once a website reaches a certain "threshold."
Another, more "technical" explanation points to specific configuration issues: for example, an incorrect favicon.ico path. The code might be incorrect, or CDN/caching might be causing Bing to fail to crawl, etc.
The problem with these explanations is that—Each one seems reasonable on its own, but they are difficult to reconcile when placed in a real-world context. Initially, I also tried to understand this phenomenon from these perspectives, and even thought at one point, "That might be the case." But when I broadened my observation scope slightly and compared different websites and search results, I quickly discovered that these explanations began to show problems one by one. It was from here that I realized: this problem might not be a simple matter of "misconfiguration" or "insufficient conditions."
Taking my blog as an example, let's examine these common claims one by one. First, in terms of "time," my blog has been running for nearly 3 years, which meets the requirement of "long-standing":
However, if you continue looking, you'll find that the situation starts to become inconsistent. In Bing's Webmaster Tools, my website consistently shows URLs as approximately... 606:
The actual number of indexed records will be even less, which is significantly lower than the common threshold of "more than 10,000 records indexed."They're not even in the same league.Looking at backlinks, since I've hardly done any proactive promotion or participated in link exchanges, my visitors almost entirely come from search engines.
This means that it also fails to meet the requirement of having "a relatively large number of backlinks (external links)". As for pageviews, they range from a few hundred to around 1,000 per day, which is hardly enough to meet the standard of "very high click-through rate and click volume".
In other words, if we consider these conditions together:
- ✔ Meets the requirement of: long existence time
- ❌ Not satisfied: Number of entries
- ❌ Not satisfied: External link size
- ❌ Not satisfied with: Traffic volume
So I actually only satisfy one of them.One conditionBut the problem is—In this situation, my website still displays the favicon correctly.
This creates a very direct contradiction: if the statement "at least two conditions must be met" is true, then my site obviously shouldn't have a favicon, but the reality is quite the opposite. In other words, this so-called "threshold model," at least in the real-world case of my blog, does not hold true.
As for another type of "technical reason" explanation, such as: the favicon.ico path is not standardized; The statement that "it was written incorrectly; CDN/caching caused Bing to fail to crawl" is true in some scenarios, but it also has a clear problem in this case:If this is due to technical reasons, then its performance should be stable, not selective.In other words, either all search engines will be unable to obtain the favicon, or they will all be able to display it normally.
However, the reality is that many individual bloggers (such as "Benben" mentioned in Chapter 1) display their favicons perfectly fine on Google, but only show up as "not displaying" on Bing. As is well known, Google has very strict requirements regarding page specifications and resource resolution. If a site can display its favicon correctly on Google, then technically speaking, it is already "qualified."
Therefore, the essence of this problem is no longer "whether it can be displayed," but rather—Given that Bing already has the capability to display content, should it choose to display it?
Then, an even more crucial question arises:What is Bing basing its decision on regarding whether to display this message?
3. Bing's definition of a "trusted site"“
3.1 Overview: How do we understand this problem when the rules do not exist?
Now that the question has shifted from "whether to display" to "whether to be selected for display," the more crucial question is:What is Bing basing its decision on regarding "whether to display"?
If this choice isn't random, then there must be a set of judgment logic behind it. However, this logic isn't explicitly written out. I initially tried a more direct approach—checking if Bing had provided any relevant explanations. But the reality is:There is almost no clear documentation or rules regarding the conditions for favicon display. This also means that it is difficult for us to get the answer directly by "looking up information".
In this situation, instead of trying to find a "standard" that doesn't exist or is difficult to confirm, it's better to try a different approach:This problem should be analyzed as a typical "black box system".
In other words, we no longer try to know "what the rule itself is," but rather try to approximate this judgment mechanism by observing the relationship between input and output:
- Input: Various signals of a website (structure, content, access patterns, etc.)
- Output: Whether to display the "full site" (including favicon) in search results.
But before we can actually analyze these "input signals," there is a more fundamental question that needs to be clarified first:How does a search engine identify "a site" from a bunch of independent pages? Only when a website is understood as a "site" can subsequent judgments about "whether it is displayed in its complete form" (such as whether it is accompanied by a favicon) have a basis for existence.
Therefore, we need to solve the first problem first:How search engines reconstruct a "site" step by step from "pages".
3.2 From “Page” to “Site”: How Search Engines Understand a Website
Before attempting to deduce Bing's decision logic, we need to return to a more fundamental question:How do search engines "understand a website"? From a user's perspective, a website is a natural whole: it has a clear name, a unified style, and well-defined structural boundaries. But for search engines, things aren't so straightforward. Because the way search engines work dictates that what they encounter first is never the "website," but rather individual pages.
Whether actively crawled by web crawlers or passively discovered through external links, what search engines obtain is always the specific URL. The so-called "website" is actually a structure that search engines gradually "reconstruct" after classifying and organizing these pages during subsequent processing.
in other words:“"Sites" do not exist naturally in search engines; they are identified by them step by step. This seemingly basic point directly determines a crucial issue:Does the search engine have the ability to understand and display these pages as a "site"?
Once this is understood, many seemingly disparate phenomena can actually be connected. For search engines, what they really need to solve is not just "whether this page is of high quality," but a more fundamental question: Can these pages be considered as a whole? Does this whole have a clear structure? Is it stable and clear enough to be understood as an "independent site"?
In other words, besides "page quality," there is a more fundamental judgment process:Site Identification. This recognition process does not rely on a single condition, but is completed step by step based on a set of comprehensive signals.
For example, are there clear and stable structural relationships between pages—can navigation, categories, and internal links form a hierarchical structure rather than being fragmented? Are there sufficient differences between different pages—can titles and content be clearly distinguished rather than being a large number of templated and repetitive combinations? Is the organization of URLs consistent and readable, and can it reflect the hierarchical relationship between pages?
In addition to these factors, it is equally important for a site to have a clear "identity". For example, whether there is a stable site name, whether consistent identification information appears in the title or on the page, and whether the overall style is consistent - all of these will affect whether search engines can "merge" these pages into the same site, rather than a loose collection of content.
Essentially, these signals are not specific rules of any one search engine, but rather basic information that almost all search engines rely on when processing web pages. Whether or not Google,still Microsoft Bing, a subsidiary of Bing, will not be fundamentally different in this respect.
From this perspective, the significance of these signals is not merely about "optimizing page quality," but rather about helping search engines accomplish something more fundamental:Confirm whether these pages can be grouped into a well-structured and clearly defined "site". Only when this condition is met can search engines organize and display this content in the results as a "site".
Building on this foundation, if we revisit the favicon issue, we'll find a very natural conclusion:If a site itself is not clearly identified as a "site", then it is difficult for it to be fully displayed in the form of a "site". The favicon in Bing search results is part of this "site-level display"—it's not an attribute of a specific page, but rather:This is a display element that can only appear after "site identification" is established.
In other words, in Bing search resultsWhether a site's favicon can be displayed depends primarily not on the icon itself, but on whether Bing has already "treated the site as a site".
A direct manifestation of site identification: sitelinks
To understand the process of "site identification" more intuitively, we can use a very typical external manifestation—sitelinks.
Once a website is successfully identified, search engines often present it in a more "structured" way. The most typical example of this is the so-called... sitelinks (attached links to a website)Below the main results, multiple important page entry points from the same site are displayed. This display format essentially means that the search engine no longer treats these pages as isolated results, but has recognized that they belong to the same well-structured site.
For this reason, sitelinks can often serve as a relatively intuitive reference signal:Only when a site's structure, hierarchy, and identity are sufficiently clear can a search engine have the ability and the justification to display it as a "site".For example, in Bing search results for my blog, the sitelinks for the domestic and international versions are as follows:
However, creating scientific and aesthetically pleasing sitelinks is not an easy task: it is not the result that can be triggered by a single factor, but often requires the combined effect of a long-term stable site structure and content signals.
This is why the emergence of sitelinks is often not the result of an "optimization technique," but rather more like a natural feedback loop.Search engines will only display a site as a "site" if it is clear enough in terms of structure, content, and identity.
If a website is able to reliably generate sitelinks, then at least this indicates that:From the search engine's perspective, it already has a very clear structure and well-defined site boundaries.
It's important to emphasize that sitelinks are not a prerequisite for favicons, and there is no direct triggering relationship between the two. The more significant purpose of introducing sitelinks here is to serve as an observable signal indicating that a site has been recognized by search engines as a "well-structured whole," thus ruling out the possibility of "insufficient basic conditions."
3.3 favicon: A "site signal" that is displayed with a delay“
In the previous section, we explained one thing by starting with the basic workings of search engines:As long as a site has a clear structure, stable content, and clear identity signals, a search engine has the ability to recognize it as a "complete site".
In other words, from the perspective of "site identification," whether a website is considered a "site" is actually traceable. But the problem lies in—Even if these conditions are met, the favicon may still not appear in Bing search results.
This creates a crucial contradiction: on the one hand, Bing can already identify the site; on the other hand, it doesn't display a favicon or similar "site identifier" in the search results. For example, my blog already had a structured display of sitelinks similar to what it has now when it was less than two years old, but the favicon only appeared in the last two months. If the display of the favicon solely depends on whether it's recognized as a site, then these two results shouldn't occur simultaneously. In other words, the logic of "site identification" alone cannot explain this phenomenon.
In this case, a more reasonable inference is:Beyond "site identification," Bing likely has another independent judgment mechanism to decide "whether to display." From this perspective, the favicon issue is no longer a "technical problem," nor is it a question of "whether the basic conditions are met," but rather more like:Given that the ability to showcase is already available, the question is whether to choose to showcase it.
If we further abstract this process, we can get a clearer structure: the entire judgment process is likely not completed in one go, but is divided into two relatively independent stages: the first stage is the basic process that all search engines go through: identifying the "site" through signals such as page structure, content differences, and link relationships; the second stage is to further select the display format based on this: whether to present the results in the form of a "complete site", and whether to include a visual identifier such as a favicon.
In most cases, these two stages occur consecutively, making them easily mistaken for "the same judgment." However, based on actual observation, there seems to be a degree of "decoupling" between these two in Bing. It is precisely because of this that the following situation arises:The site has been identified, but the favicon is still not displayed.
Next, a more crucial question naturally arises:Now that it already has the "ability to display," what is Bing basing its decision on "whether to display" a favicon?
3.4 Key Factors Affecting Favicon Display
If the previous section addressed "whether a second level of judgment exists," then this section answers the question: what are these judgments based on? Without official documentation, this question is difficult to answer directly from "rule documents." However, looking at it from another perspective, this judgment process cannot be entirely random. In other words:If the display of favicons does indeed involve a "second layer of judgment," then it must rely on a set of signals that can be perceived by search engines.
These signals don't require us to guess—to a certain extent, Bing has already directly revealed some of the things it cares about through its webmaster tools.
For example, in Bing's webmaster tools, you can see a very typical type of error message:
Taken individually, these tips seem to be just common "page optimization suggestions," such as images lacking ALT attributes, duplicate titles, descriptions that are too short, and improper use of structural tags.
But if we look at these issues together, we'll discover an even more interesting phenomenon:They all point to the same core issue—whether the page is "clear, distinctive, and easy to understand".
For example, repeated titles can make it difficult to distinguish different pages semantically; descriptions that are too short can weaken the ability to express the page's theme; and messy structural tags (such as multiple H1 tags or missing H1 tags) can make the page's hierarchical relationship unclear.
In other words, these so-called "problems" are not merely affecting the quality of a single page, but rather influencing a higher-level judgment:Is this site "clear" and "understandable" enough?
If we put this back into the "two-stage model" mentioned earlier, we can find a very reasonable explanation: In the first stage, these pages are enough for the search engine to complete the "site recognition"; but in the second stage, when Bing needs to decide "whether to display it as a complete site", these details are likely to become factors that affect the judgment.
In other words:Even if a site has been identified, Bing may choose not to display the favicon temporarily if there are obvious problems in terms of "structural clarity" and "content differentiation".
As I write this, I suddenly recall something I did over the past two months: I revised the titles of all my articles, removing the original titles such as "Home Data Center Series," "Docker Series," and "Tips and Tricks Series" (I used to categorize articles as "xx series" at the beginning of the title because I thought it would allow readers to immediately identify the category).
This incident made me almost certain of what had happened.This is the main reason why Bing didn't show my favicon before.Previously, I kept seeing the error message "Too many pages have the same title" in Webmaster Tools, but back then the number was far more than the current 238.
I actually suspected that Bing's method of judging "identical titles" was flawed. For example, the error message I still receive reveals that the so-called "duplicate titles" actually refers to the Chinese and English versions of the page on my site:
However, in reality, the titles of these two types of pages are completely different:
In other words,In the current page state, the "duplicate title" criteria are no longer valid.
This leads to a noteworthy phenomenon: Bing's issue reports of this type are likely not generated based on real-time data, but rather still rely on historical crawls or outdated analysis results. In other words, even if a site has undergone structural or content optimization, these changes may not be immediately reflected in webmaster tools.
Of course, it's also possible that Bing employs a simplified strategy in its multilingual page judgment logic in certain situations, leading to similar "false positives." But regardless of the specific reason, this phenomenon at least illustrates one point:The prompts in the webmaster tools are not always fully synchronized with the current site status.
This leads to an even more interesting question: why do other search engines (such as Google) not produce the same results in similar scenarios?
The high repetition rate of titles caused Bing to temporarily not display the favicon when determining whether the site had the ability to display it fully (but I have to complain here, Google doesn't have any objections, why is Bing being so fussy? I used to think the same way, which is why I couldn't be bothered with Bing).
After I uniformly adjusted all the article titles, the number of these errors decreased significantly, and the differentiation between pages improved. More importantly, shortly afterward, when I searched for my blog on Bing again, the favicon started displaying correctly.
While a simple causal relationship cannot be definitively proven between the two, the correlation is very strong based on the temporal sequence and the resulting changes. In other words,Once a site improves on the key dimension of "content differentiation," Bing may reassess its eligibility for display, thus allowing the favicon to be shown.
My own experience can illustrate this well:Even if a site has been fully identified, Bing will still make additional judgments on the display of the favicon based on the site's internal structure and content signals.
Of course, in my case, the main factor affecting the display of the favicon was likely the "excessive repetition of page titles"; however, for other individual bloggers, the reasons for the favicon not displaying may be different.
in other words,There is no single triggering condition for this type of problem. Instead, it depends on the overall performance of the site across multiple dimensions, including structure, content, and expression. It requires analysis based on the specific circumstances.
These signals indicate that Bing is not judging a specific problem, but rather assessing a more holistic attribute: whether the site is "clear" enough to be reliably understood.
3.5 Optional: Force a favicon refresh via Support
In the preceding analysis, we have gradually established a relatively complete understanding framework: the display of favicons is not simply a "technical issue," nor will it automatically appear as long as it is identified as a site. Rather, it is the result of two stages: "site identification + display judgment."
In other words, Bing is more likely to display favicons in search results only when a site reaches a certain level in multiple dimensions such as structural clarity, content differentiation, and overall expression.
However, in practice, there is a relatively common situation:Even if these conditions are met, the favicon may still not appear for a long time. This doesn't necessarily mean the judgment failed; it's more likely because:Bing's assessment of site status is not a real-time triggered process.Search engines typically employ a periodic update mechanism between crawling, parsing, modeling, and final display. Even if the site itself has changed, these changes may not be immediately reflected in the search results.
From this perspective, the display of favicons is sometimes more like a "delayed effect" rather than "instant feedback." It is against this backdrop that a seemingly "non-technical" approach exists—submitting a support request to allow Bing to proactively reassess the site's display status.
For those who need to submit a support request, please follow the illustrated tutorial below. You can find the support entry point in the upper right corner of Bing's webmaster tools under the "?" icon.
Click the "Bing Webmaster Support" link below:
Then click the "Raise support request" link at the bottom of the page:
Then you can fill it out according to the following template:
To make it easier for everyone, I've also pasted the description text separately below:
My site's favicon is not showing in Bing search results, even though the site is fully crawled and recognized. I believe this is related to site structure and content signals, as reported in Webmaster Tools, and would like Bing to refresh or recrawl the favicon.
By submitting a problem description, you can request that the search results for a particular website be checked or refreshed. In many real-world cases, this method can indeed make the favicon appear in the search results in a relatively short period of time.
Note: You will usually receive your first manual reply within 48 hours after submission. However, it is said that there are cases where the message takes effect without a reply, but I estimate that this is very rare. In short, just keep an eye on things during those few days.
However, it should be noted that,Support doesn't mean Bing can completely bypass the rules, but rather that it should reassess existing site signals.In other words, if a site has significant problems with its structure, content differentiation, and title uniqueness, then even if Support is submitted, it may not have an immediate effect, or the effect may be minimal. Support is more of a "trigger," accelerating the reprocessing of sites that already meet the display requirements, rather than replacing the rules themselves.
Of course, a few edge cases cannot be ruled out. Some sites may not fully comply with the rules in certain details, but after manually submitting support, the favicon or sitelink may appear ahead of time. This is an exception, not the norm, so support cannot be relied upon to "break the rules." Overall, sites must first meet the basic conditions for support to truly work; otherwise, it will only trigger an invalid reassessment.
From this perspective, the significance of Support lies not in changing the rules, but in making existing rules take effect faster, while providing a means of manual intervention to reduce waiting time caused by evaluation cycles or update delays. In other words, it's an acceleration and refresh mechanism, not a panacea.
4. Postscript: This isn't just a favicon issue.
At this point, the question actually has a relatively clear answer. Initially, I just wanted to understand something very specific: why do some websites not have favicons in Bing search results, while others display them correctly? It seems more like a question of "whether the configuration is correct," and a simple search can yield various "experience summaries."
However, when I actually started comparing, verifying, and applying these claims to real-world scenarios, things gradually became more complicated. The seemingly reasonable explanations—time, number of indexed pages, backlinks, and pageviews—did not hold water in specific cases; the so-called "technical issues" were also difficult to justify given that Google was performing normally.
Only by breaking the problem down will we discover:favicon has never been a separate issue. It is merely a result, not a cause.
What actually happens is a whole set of judgments that the search engine makes about a website behind the scenes—from the initial page crawling to structural understanding, and then to the decision of "whether to display it as a website." This entire process is inherently phased and not necessarily completed in real time. And in this respect,Bing's performance was particularly evident..
In practice, Bing often separates "site identification" and "display decision" into two relatively independent stages: a site may have been fully identified (e.g., sitelinks appear), but the favicon will not be displayed for a period of time. This phenomenon of "the capability is there, but the display is delayed" is not uncommon in Bing.
This is precisely why we see those seemingly unreasonable phenomena: the site has been identified, but the favicon still hasn't appeared; the problem has been fixed, but the error message in the webmaster tools still exists; and in some cases, the results can change significantly in a short period of time after manually submitting support.
These phenomena all point to the same thing:The judgment of a search engine is not a one-time event, but a continuous process of updating and correction. In other words, it's more like "gradually confirming" a site rather than drawing a final conclusion at a specific point in time. Looking back at favicons from this perspective reveals a more fundamental truth:It's not a question of "whether it can be displayed," but rather a question of "when it's considered worthwhile to display."
It should be noted that this conclusion is in This was especially evident in Bing's performance.In terms of favicon display, Bing does indeed have a more obvious "delayed judgment" and "additional filtering" mechanism, which is the premise for most of the analysis in this article.
However, if we broaden our perspective further, we'll find that although different search engines differ in their specific strategies, they are actually interconnected on a more fundamental issue—They are all trying to answer the same question: Is this site clear enough to be understood and presented as a "whole"?
Instead of focusing on "why the favicon didn't appear," we should focus on the more fundamental issues—Does your site have a clear structure, stable content, and sufficiently clear expression so that search engines can understand it without ambiguity?
If the answer to this question is yes, then the emergence of favicons is often just a matter of time; but if the question itself is not yet fully established, any optimization of "icons" is likely to be just superficial.
In this sense, what this article truly aims to illustrate may not be favicons themselves, but rather a more general understanding: many seemingly scattered and sporadic problems actually have a deeper, underlying systemic logic. Only when we are willing to look one layer deeper, reducing the problem from "phenomenon" to "mechanism," will many things that were originally vague or even mystical become clear.
And once you understand this logic, you might find that—The favicon is merely a result; the real question is whether it is treated as a website..