Website icon not displaying in Bing: What to do

Hello, ladies and gentlemen. In this article, I will explain how to make sure your website’s icon displays in Bing’s search results. It’s actually not a difficult task. This guide for setting up a favicon in Bing is based on a WordPress website, but it will work for any site.

If you’re using another CMS, you simply need to ensure that the following hypertext appears in the head section:

<link href="https://your-site.com/favicon.ico" rel="icon" type="image/x-icon">

If you need support for the outdated Internet Explorer, you’ll need to add another line of code in addition to the one mentioned above:

<link href="https://your-site.com/favicon.ico" rel="shortcut icon" type="image/x-icon">

Replace the file path with your own. Don’t forget to adjust the file name and format. Bing supports the following formats: png, gif, ico, jpg. It’s best to use the good old .png.

Adding a favicon for Bing in WordPress

To add a favicon for Bing in WordPress, you need to upload the website icon to the root folder of your site (this is the folder that contains files like .htaccess, wp-config.php). Then, add the following code to the functions.php file of your child theme or to a custom plugin:

function wp_faviconich(){
	/*for current browsers*/
	echo "<link href='" . get_home_url() . "/favicon.ico' rel='icon' type='image/x-icon'/>" . "\n";
	/*for old browsers*/
    echo "<link href='" . get_home_url() . "/favicon.ico' rel='shortcut icon' type='image/x-icon'/>" . "\n";
}
add_action( 'wp_head', 'wp_faviconich');

Don’t forget to adjust the code according to your favicon’s format, for example, change the file extension and, for png, set the type to image/png. I do not recommend using JPEG or GIF formats for favicons.

After that, wait for Bing to index it. However, this may not happen at all, as was the case for me. If that happens, it’s time to follow the steps that I will explain next.

No Favicon in Bing: Solving the Problem

So, the reason why the favicon isn’t displaying in Bing is simple: the algorithm of the search engine itself is flawed. It may show the site’s icon, or it may not. This depends very little on you.

The favicon is missing in Bing’s search results, even though there may be no issues with it in other search engines.

Bing’s requirements are as follows:

1. The website must have a valid favicon file in the root directory of the website, meaning the main folder of the site, not in user-specific sections. This is where files like index.php, .htaccess, or wp-config.php are located.
2. The favicon file must be in one of the following formats: .ico, .png, .gif, or .jpg.
3. The site’s icon must be at least 16×16 pixels in size, but it’s recommended to use a larger size of at least 32×32 pixels, preferably 64×64 or 128×128.
4. The favicon file must be accessible and not blocked by any robots.txt rules or server configurations.
5. The website must have a valid sitemap.xml file, and the sitemap must include the URL of the favicon file. However, this isn’t always feasible for WordPress, especially if the sitemap is generated by SEO plugins.

If, for any reason, the favicon is not displaying, it’s pointless to try various methods to fix it. For instance, changing the site’s icon format to .ico didn’t help me, nor did clearing the cache. It’s impossible to clear specific pages from a search engine’s cache, only individual lines of code.

So, there’s only one solution left: contact Bing support, which, by the way, isn’t easy to find. But I did it.

First, add your site to Bing Webmaster: https://www.bing.com/webmasters/. You’ll need this to follow the next steps.

After adding your site to Bing Webmaster, go to this link: https://www.bing.com/webmasters/help/webmaster-support-24ab5ebf This is the support page for webmasters on Bing.

Scroll down a bit and click the “Raise support request” button.

Log in through your Google account if you verified your site via Search Console or through a Microsoft account.

Next, you’ll need to fill out the support brief.

1. In the menu Choose the website you need help with?, select the site you need help with. Please select only one site.
2. In What type of problem do you have?, choose Bad Search Result (Incorrect search results).
3. In the menu What do you need help with?, select Issue with title or description (Problem with title or description).
4. Click the toggle Still have a question? (Do you still have questions?).

In the comment section, write the following message (exactly in English):

Hello,

the favicon on my website is not showing up in search results. I followed Bing’s recommendations, but the site icon still hasn’t appeared in the search for a long time.

Then, click the Get Help button.

After that, you will receive a message confirming that the request has been successfully submitted. Wait for a response from support, which will be sent to your email.

This may take some time. For one site, it took only a day, while for another, I received a response from support after 2 days. However, this might have been because my request was submitted over the weekend.

In their reply, they simply informed me that the request had been processed, the favicon was updated, and it would soon display correctly.

However, on the first day, the favicon already appeared in Bing.

There are simply no other options to make the site icon display in the Bing search engine. You will have to contact support.

Tips like changing the icon format, adding some code, or including it in the sitemap simply don’t work. So, if you’ve already added the favicon in the head section but it’s still not displaying in Bing, just contact support. Don’t waste your time trying ineffective methods.

I hope this guide helps you. With that, I’ll say goodbye and wish you success and fewer problems with favicons. All the best!