In the past couple of days, I have seen a spike in the number of complaints around favicons disappearing from the Google Search result snippets. The complaints started a couple of days before Google’s August 2026 spam update, so I doubt they are related to that, but they have indeed spiked. It makes me think that Google changed something on its end, versus all these site owners making a technical change.
Here is what the favicon should look like:
Here is a random example of a broken favicon in Google Search (I have no idea if this example is a Google bug or a site owner bug):
But I am seeing a ton of complaints, both in the Google Webmaster Helpthis site and on X. Here are some of those complaints:
Google removed my website’s favicon from the search results. Why? Traffic is still at rock bottom.
I’m experiencing the same thing. Favicon has been gone since Monday.
My website is still showing Google’s generic globe icon in search results instead of its favicon. Both /favicon.ico and /favicon.png return 200 responses, are valid 128×128 square images, are referenced directly in the homepage HTML, and are not blocked by robots.txt. I have requested reindexing through Google Search Console numerous times. Is there anything else that could prevent Google from displaying the favicon?
The favicon used to appear beside the website in Google Search results, but recently it disappeared and Google is now showing the default/globe icon instead.
https://x.com/lumdys/status/2090050549412487571
— SEO Südwest (@seosuedwest.bsky.social) August 19, 2026 at 10:32 AM
I did ask Google’s John Mueller about this and waiting to hear back:
@johnmu.com I am seeing a number (about 7) complaints in the past day about favicons disappearing around Monday from Google Search. Any ideas?
— Barry Schwartz (@rustybrick.com) August 19, 2026 at 9:19 AM
Forum discussion at Bluesky.
Update 2: Google’s Rajan Patel said he is looking into it:
https://x.com/rajanpatel/status/2090473920709492855
