The url for the file is http://www.resalebroker.com/favicon.ico The error I receive is for /favicon.ico
Try it this way in your html: instead of <link rel="shortcut icon" href="http://www.resalebroker.com/favicon.ico"> Code (markup): try <LINK REL="SHORTCUT ICON" HREF="favicon.ico"> Code (markup):
Try this: <link rel="shortcut icon" href="/favicon.ico" type="image/x-icon" /> <link rel="icon" href="/favicon.ico" type="image/x-icon" /> Code (markup): I noticed that the favicon works differently in IE and Mozilla browsers. In IE, it is not finding it for display in the Address bar until you actually save it as a Favorite -- it should show up automatically. This is where the error is probably coming from. In Mozilla, it does show up in the Address bar -- but when you bookmark it the icon does not show up in your bookmark file, it cannot find it for some reason. This will probably create the error also. Try the above code and see if that will correct it. It is kind of a hack around the problem. (The trailing slashes are required for doctype 4.01 Transitional, and it may or may not affect things if you leave them off.)
Ie is designed to look automatically in the root of the site for the favicon.ico file, regardless as to whether or not you have told it to in the page... Just a side note
Hmmm... odd. The "instructions" for favicons use the code I gave you: <LINK REL="SHORTCUT ICON" HREF="favicon.ico"> Code (markup): and that works fine on sites I've created or are associated with -- see SEBasic's comment above too, which was my suspicion... that's why I wondered if having path information in the statement was throwing things off. Now I wonder about the structure of your site -- whether it's a virtual hosting problem or something... but I'm really grasping at straws/thinking out loud here now. I think I'd start by looking at the "URL strings" that are creating the errors, as SarahK suggested earlier, especially since you mentioned some of the other errors turned out to be because of this. It's also possible it's an older browser quirk: I have a custom error page which resides in the root directory and works just fine -- except that recently I started noticing odd 404 errors in my logs for /script/error.htm, /script/script/error.htm, and on and on up to the totally ridulous /script/script..../script/error.htm (with as many as a dozen of those "/script" subdirectories. Later, in investigating a problem one of my forum members was having with an older computer and Netscape 4.73, I viewed the site using that older browser and voila! Netscape 4.x was the one generating those errors: it would have a problem with a link, try to go to the custom error page but somehow misread or mis-assemble the path (adding in /script when it should have just gone to the root), and then in an effort to correct that error the browser went into an endless loop adding more /script elelments to the path trying to find the custom error page. Wierd as all getout! That doesn't happen with any other browser or even with later versions of Netscape, as far as I can determine... Have a look in your log files and see if you can find any evidence of older browsers -- is that correlated with the 404 errors you're seeing?
I checked the logs and there were a few stragglers still using old browsers: Internet Explorer 4.x Netscape 4.x But that was it. I checked NetMechanic and I have no broswer compatibility issues. With that said, this code does have compatibiliy issues: <link rel="shortcut icon" href="/favicon.ico" type="image/x-icon" /> <link rel="icon" href="/favicon.ico" type="image/x-icon" />
<link rel="icon" href="http://www.seo-dev.co.uk/favicon.ico" type="image/x-icon" /> That's what I use and don't have any issues...
Not to get off the Google topic but here is an example of an error I just received: Error 404 - Page Not Found Requested URL: /cgi-bin/refer.cgi Referring URL: http://www.resalebroker.com/ Of course, this isn't a valid link and never was. That file has never been in my cgi-bin. So this can't be a link from any page, old or new. This sounds like the "Fishing" Sarahk was writing about at the beginning of this thread.
Now that the coffee is kicking in I'm wondering if those older browsers even recognize the favicon.ico statement or know what it is... even so, if they are looking for it, they should be able to find it. How MANY of these errors are you getting? This could be a diminishing returns thing -- if there are only a couple a month, don't worry about it...
I just tested that on my site and it didn't have any issues either. I'll run it for a while and see what happens. Correction: This also is showing a Browser Compatibility error.
Getting errors for "standard" pages isn't unusual -- people (or bots) sometimes look for generic pages like "contact.html" or "sales.html" because many sites have pages with those titles -- if your site (like mine) does not have pages with those titles it will generate a 404 error but it's not an error on your site. If you get enought of them, it might be worth putting a redirection page to wherever the information can be found, although I prefer a custom 404 which includes a search box, navigation links, and a link to the site map. Back to the original question, I'd say try the alternate form suggested by Dodger and SEBasic, but also go back to your logs and look for subtle syntax errors as SarahK suggested.
This error came from Googlebot? I know there are worm attacks that are made on servers daily. They automatically spread themselves from computer to computer. Most server log analyzers should filter these out into a seperate category and not report it as an actual 404 error. For example, hits on the file /index.ida comes from the Code Red Worm and will be filtered out. What Log Analyzer are you using? <LINK REL="SHORTCUT ICON" HREF="favicon.ico"> Code (markup): I just wanted to point out that this should of had the leading slash in front of the filename -- "/favicon.ico" -- This tells the server to look in the root folder for the file. Without the slash, it would have thrown some of the errors you experienced before you added the icon to those directories.
I think you've hit it right on the head. Like Sarahk, I have set up custom 404 pages and that is where the messages come from.
I just went to resalebroker.com and the favicon was not displayed (IE 6 on XP). Typing in resalebroker.com/favicon.ico displays the little R. Maybe it's a bug in IE?