Animated vs Non Animated Favicon

This tutorial tries to bring about a quick comparison on whether to use an Animated or a Non-Animated Favicon for your site.

What are the benefits of an Animated Favicon?

Animated Favicon, as the name suggests is a non-static Favicon i.e nothing but using a .gif as favicon instead of the .ico file generally used. Its advantageous over a non animated favicon as:

1. It makes your page bookmark stand out.

Imagine a home page of your browser with a dozen bookmarks and only a single favicon blinking. Its a human tendency to attract to things thats moving rather that once static.

2. Helps people remember your page.

Pages with moving favicons are remembered for a longer duration. Studies shows that people remember moving items for a longer time.

Why shouldn't i use an Animated Favicon?

Every coin has two faces if there are advantages, there has to be some disadvantages too .

1. Not supported in all browsers

The biggest disadvantage is that only few browsers like firefox supports an animated favicon. Though the browsers not supporting the animated favicon shows it as non-animated one.

2. Bad for 'Search Engine Optimisation'.

Majority of Search Engines look for a favicon.ico file in your root folder. A very few recognises a favicon.gif. Hence, using an animated favicon is generally not recommended by SEO Masters.

3. Confusing for users.

A moving favicon in the address bar gives an impression of still loading web page. And as its a .gif, it would never stop thus making your users confused.

4. Decreases User-Friendliness

It can sometimes be annoying as there is no way user can stop it by himself. Thus, making it user-hostile.

5. W3.org's Guideline 2.3 for Flash Items

Better known as "Seizure" this Guideline states that web pages shouldn't contain items that flashes more than three times in any 1 second period.

Though most of you would love to use an animated Favicons but we always advice non animated Favicons for your site.