The Favicon Marks Your Spot

Yahoo! tests favicons with popular search ad results

It’s good for everybody when a user searching for your website can quickly identify that your ad belongs to you. That’s why we’re rolling out a new icon that helps searchers spot your site at a glance.

We’re testing a program that uses favicons, the little icons that show up on your browser next to the address window when you’re on a page—say, on Expedia.com. These favicons are already widely in use on the Web. Now, when a user searches for “Expedia,” or another search that matches your domain name, that same favicon will show up next to the URL in your ad. It’ll look something like this:

Expedia Ad

What good does that do anyone? Well, it’s just one more way for users to know they’re really looking at your site, which will improve the search experience. And if they know you’re really what they searched for, they may click on you more frequently, helping your click-through rate and improving your quality score.

Keep in mind that this is a test, and we’re only trying it out on select advertisers. As such, you can’t sign up for it just yet if you’re not one of the early advertisers who are piloting the project. However, if you’re bidding on your own domain name and you have a favicon.ico file on your site, you may be eligible to participate.

Not interested in participating? Just contact us to let us know that you’d like out. (Or, for that matter, if you’d like in when it opens up further.) We’ll be sure to keep you posted as the program evolves.

—Jeff Sweat, Blog Editor

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10 Comments Add your own

1. steve | May 7th, 2009 at 8:41 pm

Wow! I luv innovations of Yahoo! I think this feature will filter phishing. Eagerly looking forward!
2. Pandiyarajan | May 7th, 2009 at 8:48 pm

When a person search for a ‘Expedia’ like searches they will get the organic result itself then what is the purpose of showing in the advertisement.
3. Jemm | May 8th, 2009 at 1:54 am

Pandiyarajan, I think the main concern here is for branding purposes. The favicon will be able to build the brand of the advertiser.

I think this is an excellent medium that will help advertisers in their search marketing campaigns. Hopefully it pushes thru.
4. Alexandre Augusto | May 8th, 2009 at 7:54 am

Will this be available worldwide? When? Definitely a good branding feature added.
5. Yahoo Testing Favicons in&hellip | May 22nd, 2009 at 10:50 pm

[...] looks at the example of Expedia. You can see how it looks in the following [...]
6. Yahoo Testing Favicons in&hellip | June 7th, 2009 at 4:26 pm

[...] looks at the example of Expedia. You can see how it looks in the following [...]
7. unlimited | October 7th, 2009 at 12:01 pm

Great branding feature.. and it’s probably going to boost CTR as well. Can’t wait to give it a try and hoping it’s gonna be available for non-US markets too.

Anyways, that is a really good idea.. Keep up the good work!
8. Yahoo Testing Favicons in&hellip | October 29th, 2009 at 6:10 am

[...] looks at the example of Expedia. You can see how it looks in the following [...]
9. barkod sistemi | July 18th, 2010 at 2:59 pm

When a person search for a ‘Expedia’ like searches they will get the organic result itself then what is the purpose of showing in the advertisement.
10. Kevin | August 1st, 2010 at 7:25 am

thanks bro

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