What the Heck is a Favicon?

I'm a big multi-tabber, so when I pulled up this site yesterday next to three others I had open, I noticed that the other sites each had a nice little icon, or logo, next to their names, whereas mine had an ugly black wire globe. 

Why is that? And how can I get an icon, too? Authors who have commercial web hosting probably have an icon (of some sort), though some I've accessed have no icon at all. I'd actually be fine with none at all, but that wire globe looks cheesy and sort of spammy. 

Thus, I went on a search. I asked Google, "How can I add an icon to my website?" Well, as it turns out, that's called a favicon. Oh! I've seen that in my Blogger settings, but I ignored it, because I assumed it was something technical that I had no business paying attention to.

Now I clicked on it and was met with a specification regarding image size and also a support link (thankfully). Generally, Blogger Help is not helpful; techies speak a language all their own and they're not inclined to translate it for civilians. This time, though, it provided a link for converting an image into an icon. (Oh, is that what "favicon" means? Favorite icon?)

Even better, the site does its work for free, and not a free trial, but actually free. I know, because naturally I was dissatisfied with my icons the first ten or so times.

The site is called Online-Convert. 

Of course, reading its directions was too much trouble, so I found an image on my hard drive I wanted to use and then pulled up a photo editor to reduce its size, before discovering that Online-Convert will take care of all that. My first image, however, had too much white space and not enough "pizzazz", so I trimmed its borders and tried again. Then I decided I didn't much like that image, so I created a different one in Canva. This went on for a few times until I was satisfied and uploaded it to my site settings. Well, damn, it didn't work. When I pulled up my site, that ugly globe was still there.

Unbeknownst to me, things in the configuration world don't happen immediately. (They really should.) I went to bed knowing I'd have to figure out my missteps in the morning and try again. Except now it worked! While the icon featuring a quill pen is obviously very tiny, it still looks far better than: 

 

Now I wanted one for my author site, too, so I used a logo I'd created with Canva a long time ago (for no discernible reason). It turned out that one didn't look right, either, so I designed a new one.

 

Needless to say, I'm now a favicon expert, so if you need a tutor, I'm your girl.

 

I possess a wealth of minutiae, if I do say so myself.