Internet Explorer versions 5.0 and high includecustom bookmarker iconsfor some sites . Most likely , only a handful of your favored sites will come out with these custom icons . The relaxation will have the simple nonpayment icon . This is because most webmaster do n’t know about this function or have n’t assume the time to create an ikon , and so they have n’t posted anything for Explorer to use . funnily enough , the internet site for Internet Explorer itself does n’t have a custom ikon !
It ’s funny that more site do n’t have custom icons because it ’s fairly loose to set one up and they help boost traffic . A typicalInternetsurfer bookmarks a mass of web site , but only returns to a select few more than a couple of time – most sites just get mislay in the crowd . When it ’s surrounded by plain default icons , a customs duty image really jump out at the exploiter , and they do n’t forget about it so easily . This is a corking way to give your site an edge over other sites , and it only need a few stride to rig everything up .
The first thing you need to do is come up with a suitable icon . ikon are just simple 16 by 16 pixel electronic image persona , but Explorer wo n’t use ordinaryGIF or JPEG files . You ’ll have to save the mental image as an ICO file , a limited ikon file formatting . The big difference between this data format and GIF and JPEG files is that ICO is plan to save multiple sizes and colour schemes of one paradigm . This is because Windows displays desktop icons in a variety of ways calculate on the context and supervise preferences . It ’s not very hard to create an ICO file;this sitehas on-line programs that will convert your bitmap trope to the ICO format or get you generate a new image in ICO format . It also has a free downloadable test version of a converter programme , with educational activity of how to make your graphic . As a general short letter , if you are creating custom icons in any format , design them as 16 by 16 pixel images that practice only 16 coloring material .
Once you have the ICO image , there are a mates of unlike fashion to station it to your internet site . The simplest way is to brand the file to yourroot directoryasfavicon.ico(for example , the HSW bookmarker icon can be obtain atwww.howstuffworks.com/favicon.ico ) . When a user bookmarks any of the pageboy on your site , Explorer will look for this file in the root word directory and use the icon for the bookmark .
You may not have access to your root directory ( if you are using free Web space from your net service supplier , for example ) , but you could still post a custom icon in basically the same way . You ’ll need to mail the favicon.ico file in every directory with Web Page people might want to bookmark . You may want to post your icon this way even if you do have memory access to your radical directory , because it will let you set different icon designs for the vane pages in all your dissimilar directories .
you could also set up individual icons for each page using a simple bit ofHTML code . To mail the picture this agency , give the ikon a simple-minded name ( other than favicon.ico ) and post it as an ICO file anywhere on your Web situation . Then advertising this code to your WWW pages , in between the tag and the :
In the subject space , just inclose the uniform resource locator address for your icon graphic , and Explorer will load that ikon whenever anyone bookmarks the page . After a user has book - marked your site , Explorer will also exhibit your icon in the location saloon beside your universal resource locator whenever it bring up your site .
If your custom ikon wo n’t load right , it could be because of a numeral of things . Some free servers have a policy against ICO file cabinet , so this might be the job . The links below have comprehensive lists of other troubleshooting lead which should serve you fix any other errors .
Here are some interesting nexus :