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Rule catalogue

icons.ico.missing

Serve a /favicon.ico at the root for the clients that ask blind

infosite-wideguideline

Why it matters

No specification asks for it, and half the internet requests it anyway. Modern browsers follow the <link> a page declares and never touch the root — but feed readers, link unfurlers and older crawlers ask blind, take the 404, and show nothing. Cheap to serve, invisible when absent.

What the finding looks like

The message goflag prints, with example values substituted.

info icons.ico.missing No /favicon.ico at the root: the origin answered 404. Clients that ask for it blind — feed readers, link unfurlers, older crawlers — get nothing.

How to fix it

The catalogue carries no snippet for a site rule: a cross-page rule builds its remedy from what the crawl found, so goflag attaches the fix to the finding itself rather than to the rule. Run it and read the finding.

Says who?

This rule is guideline, and it cites the documents below. Nothing here is goflag’s opinion of what a good page looks like — if you disagree with a finding, this is what you are disagreeing with.