A favicon.ico graphic is a 16×16 pixel image, displayed to the left of the URL in the browser address field. It may also be displayed alongside the title in a user’s bookmarks list, or in the history list.
What is this strange ‘.ico’ file format? Truth be known, it’s nothing other than a lowly 8-bit BMP file, renamed with the ‘.ico’ extension. You can create your own easily using Fireworks or Photoshop. Start with a 16×16 pixel canvas in RGB color space at 72dpi. Once it’s to your liking export the image to the root level of your site as ‘favicon.bmp’, using BMP8 as your export format. Then re-name the file with the ‘.ico’ extension and upload.
The final step is linking to the shortcut icon in the source of the page. By adding this code to the head:
<link rel="shortcut icon" href="http://www.yoursite.com/favicon.ico" type="image/ico" />