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:

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