Favicon is present
Why it matters
A missing favicon shows a generic document icon (or browser-default globe) in every browser tab, bookmark entry, history row, and pinned tab. When a user has five tabs open and yours is the only blank one, yours is the one they close. It's the cheapest trust signal on the web and the easiest to ship, which makes its absence a direct signal that the site was never taken past the MVP stage.
Severity rationale
Info because the missing icon does not break functionality, but it visibly degrades brand presence in every browser surface.
Remediation
Place an SVG favicon in your public assets and link it from the document head with a raster fallback for older browsers. For Next.js App Router, dropping favicon.ico into the app/ directory is enough — the framework wires the <link> automatically:
<link rel="icon" href="/favicon.svg" type="image/svg+xml">
<link rel="icon" href="/favicon.ico" sizes="32x32">
Generate a full icon set from a source logo at realfavicongenerator.net.
DetectionPro
The detection method for this pattern is part of AuditBuffet Pro.
The full method (what to look for, pass and fail conditions, and how results get reported) ships inside the Site Health Check audit. The pattern definition, severity rationale, and remediation remain openly licensed under CC-BY-4.0.
Taxons
History
- 2026-04-18·v1.0.0·Initial import from site-health-check·automated