Directory Kit

First of all, I would like to make sure that everyone knows what a favicon is. The best way to do so, is to simply to define what it is and where it can be found.

Favicon is the small icon displayed in your browser next to the URL in the address bar as well as on the bookmarks.

So why should directory owners use favicons? There are two main reasons why favicons distinguish a directory from competitors and thus should be used, which are:

• First of all, favicon highlights your directory’s design. In other words, favicon contributes to directory’s template and creates good atmosphere for a user to be in. Having a favicon also tells users that you are serious about your directory and it’s worth submitting into.
• Secondly, images are always noticed right before text and thus favicon distinguishes your directory from competitors on the bookmarks’ list. In other words, favicon makes your directory stand out from other directories.

Unfortunately, I have noticed that not a lot of directories use favicons out there. To be exact, almost none since I saw only one directory with favicon out of a hundred. In my opinion, the main reason for that is simply because people either do not know how to use them or how to create them. So in this part of the article I will try to illustrate how to create favicons, and how to setup them.

There are two main ways to create a favicon:

• Download and use already existed ones. There are a thousand of ready to use favicons but my favorite are from famfamfam. In fact, I use it for Directory Kit’s favicon as you might have noticed. You can download wonderful collection of free beautiful icons by famfamfam by clicking on the image below.




• Use special favicons generators and creators. You can either use Dynamic Drive’s generator or Real World Graphics’ online icon maker in order to make you own favicon. It’s worth noticing that Dynamic Drive’s tool let’s you create favicon by uploading already existed image and converting it to the right size, while you can use Real World Graphics’ tool to draw a favicon.

Now when you have your favicon made you are ready to setup it. In order to do so you need to follow a number of steps, which are:

• Make sure your favicon is named as “favicon.ico”. If you are using some sorts of tools for creating your favicon then you don’t need to worry about this step since they automatically save files in the right way. However, if you download and use existed ones then you need to rename it to “favicon.ico”.
• Upload it to your server. This step is fairly easy, all you do is upload the file by using your favorite ftp software.
• Add < link rel="Shortcut Icon" href="http://www.yoursite.com/favicon.ico"> (remove spaces before and after “>”)to your codings. The favicon might work without this code but still use it, just to make sure. It’s worth noticing that you should add this code into “header.tpl” file, which is in the templates folder.

To conclude, I would like to see that this post helps directory owners and more and more directories start to use favicons!