The Importance of a Favicon?

How important would you say a favicon is in terms of a sites image?

 

It makes your business look more professional, that is all.

 

Not only does it look more professional (depending on how your favicon looks like), it will also make your site stand out a bit more over others. It'll give your visitors more of an impact (very little, but it is still there). Plus, who doesn't want to add that little personal flare to their site?

 

Favicon is the determant between a professional company/site, and a not so professional one. It's so small but matters so much.
As said above, there is no reason to avoid it at all, none that I can think of.

 

For me it's also very important because I am using FaviconizeTab plugin for Firefox and I set it to minimize all the tabs to favicon size by default.
With 20-50 tabs open (even without the FavTab plugin) the name of the site gets cut and the importance of favicon grows even more.
When you are looking for something and have numerous pages open it's easier to close a "blank" page icon than a customized and "descriptive" (if 16x16 can be called descriptive at all) one. Natural selection

 

Purely for the same reason a good design makes your website better - looks more professional, makes the bookmark look more attractive, and tabbed viewing makes your website's tab stand out.

 

Favicon , that is a little icon but very useful

 

Okay; thanks for your opinions

EDIT: http://www.bigwebnews.com/favicon.ico

How would you improve that?

 

Definitely helps the professionalism look.

 

When people bookmark your site to browser. The favicon will be next to your link. It also helps to differentiate sites with the "tabs" in browsers nowadays. It's def. a MUST in any website. I get so annoyed at sites that do not have them. Seriously, it makes me want to contact the webmaster and freak out...

 

Yes, it most definitely helps you differentiate websites/pages from each other. I also feel somewhat frustrated or less inclined to click a webpage that don't have one.

 

Looks like I will be favicon making then; thanks guys

 

It's an important part in usability, try putting yourself in your visitor's shoes.
Suppose you are looking for something and have around 20 tabs open, now most of the sites dont have faviconand hence don't stand out in comparison to other's, If a site has an attractive favicon, the user will find that appealing and instinctively open that tab. If your content is good enough, he might not even consider looking at the others and hence you get more visitors

 

For everyone that don't know about creating favicons... You can download a free program called irfanview and save your 16x16 icon as an .ico file...

 

Or you could use http://www.coolutils.com/Online-Image-Converter.php

 

Yeah, with tabbing of browsers getting more and more popular, a favicon is a good idea, and besides, it can't hurt and takes a whole what? 15 minutes?

 

Yes, favicon is very important part of identification

 

I agree with all the above that the favicon is pretty important.
I don't really mind sites that don't have them but what really gets me is when a site forgets to remove or change the default one that sometimes comes with a cms or host. That just looks super unprofessional.

As far as critique of your favicon... It looks ok but doesn't fit your site. Yous favicon should match your logo and since you don't have a logo, it should at the very least match your color scheme.

See here for some beautiful favicon inspiration: http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2007/01/31/inspire-yourself-50-remarkable-favicons/

 

Was that in reference to the BigWebNews favicon?

 

its not needed but as stated, makes it look better, and even has useability - tabbing.