Google has tried over 300 options in its hunt for a new favicon.
Google has tried over 300 options in its hunt for a new favicon.
KEY POINTS:
Google has decided to get with the times and refresh its well-worn favicon.
Marissa Mayer wrote on Google's blog that the favicon - the small icon that appears in browsers next to the URL, or in lists of bookmark - has been changed to better suit newweb gadgets.
"We wanted to develop a set of icons that would scale better to some new platforms like the iPhone and other mobile devices," she wrote.
"So the new favicon is one of those, but we've also developed a group of logo-based icons that all hang together as a unified set. "
The favicon, which hasn't been changed in nearly nine years, needed upgrading from the upper-case 'G', which disappeared quietly last week and was replaced with a lower-case 'g' in blue.
"We wanted something distinctive and noticeable, so we aimed toward transparency or semi-transparency, so the image would have a more distinctive noticeable shape than just a block," wrote Mayer.
There were more than 300 possible favicons mooted to replace the 'O.G', but the one currently displaying will not be the final one.
Google is accepting suggestions for its favicon here.
