Posted by Jonathan N. Little on 03/08/07 04:12

dorayme wrote:
> In article <9b268$45ef8520$40cba7b0$5382@NAXS.COM>,
> "Jonathan N. Little" <lws4art@centralva.net> wrote:
>
>> dorayme wrote:
>>
>>> What exactly does
>>>
>>> "MSIE looks automatically for "favicon.ico" in the root directory
>>> of your site, this can be irritating as sites without them tend
>>> to get a lot of 404 errors generated from it."
>>>
>>> at this url mean?
>>>
>> It means that some browsers search for the file "/favicon.ico" without
>> having it explicitly coded in the markup. So if you do not have a file
>> named "favicon.ico" in your document root you can see 404 errors for the
>> file in your server logs. MSIE is not the only browser, Firefox also
>> looks for the file. You can confirm by putting an image/x-icon icon
>> 16x16px in your document root and see what happens even if your don't add
>>
>> <link rel="icon" type="image/x-icon" src="/favicon.ico>
>>
>> to the document...
>
> So, it means like it suggests, that lack of such a file can cause
> someone to simply not get to a url that you want them to get to?
> I take it, then, that it is wise to ensure there is such a file
> on the server?

No I think you misunderstand. If you do not have a favicon.ico on the
server and even with no references to such a file you can see 404 errors
in your logs for the favicon.ico

404 errors are logged not just for HTML documents but for images and
stylesheets and other resources normally linked but not present on the
server.

> I have never done this. No one has mentioned this
> to me ever? What the hell more is there to know? At least on
> Mars, knowledge is all laid out and quite finite.
>
> Not more than ten mins back someone said she got a "not found" to
> a link of mine showing my latest designs for a print job to her.
> I know she sees links fine mostly and especially at her home
> (where she runs FF) but at her work she uses IE. And I am
> thinking could it be this business?
>

Don't think that is connected, were you uploading the document
concurrently with her request? Or maybe a network error at her end.

--
Take care,

Jonathan
-------------------
LITTLE WORKS STUDIO
http://www.LittleWorksStudio.com

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