Nine years ago, I spoke out against a WordPress core feature, arguing that it should be removed from Core. In February, I dedicated a significant amount of time to ensuring that WordPress Core included this feature for version 6.5. So, what led me to completely change my stance, making a full 360-degree turn? A new rationale.

A Brief History of Site Icon in WordPress

February of 2011 was when the ticket for a Site Icon was first opened. It didn’t receive any traction right away. Some dismissed this feature as being plugin territory, others pointed out that scaling images down could be problematic. But there still wasn’t any traction.

When I go to WordCamps or meet business owners, most of them don’t even know the word favicon, but they know they want that image to be theirs, not a g or a globe or a blue e.

Jen Mylo

This comment helped get things moving for WordPress 3.4 but the next challenge was ico files. The .ico format was the only file format that Internet Explorer supported for favicons until IE 11. In 2012, the idea that a feature would be built without support for IE wasn’t something folks wanted to consider. A number of contributors, including Tom Auger, Brandon Dove, Nacin, Otto, Ocean90, and myself, explored libraries but ultimately nothing was ready and the feature was punted. It would be another three years before there was real traction.

The best thing to happen in those three years is that the .ico format was no longer going to be a blocker. While it wouldn’t work for older versions of Internet Explorer, Konstantin Obenland picked things up and took ownership of the feature and added the first version during the 4.3 cycle.

While bug fixes and improvements took place, Nick Halsey came in with a patch to move the feature to the Customizer. With the possibility of having this in two places, I stepped in to push towards retracting the options page version.

After a bit of cleanup, WordPress shipped 4.3. Sites could have icons. It took a few years, but an important bit of site customization was in core.

Site Icons in a Full Site Editing World

Starting in WordPress 5.9, when a site uses a block theme, WordPress no longer includes the link to the Customizer in the wp-admin menu. This means that the ability to find the site icon is harder. There is a Site Logo block that can also manage the site icon (and includes a link to the customizer) but this feels awkward.

Much like before, it took a little while to get some momentum. While not a good solution, it was still possible to manage the site icon. It just felt hidden and far from a smooth experience.

Anne McCarthy messaged me early in during the 6.5 cycle to see if I would have any interest in working on this. It only took a couple of moments of thinking to realize that this was going to be a good use of my time.

After a lot of back and forth and work from multiple individuals, especially Erik (kebbet), James Koster, Pascal Birchler, and Andrea Fercia, it was once again possible to manage your site icon from the options screen.

New Rationale

In this case, the new rationale wasn’t an explicit argument, it was a change in WordPress itself. But new rationale can come in many forms. It can be data, disproving assumptions, or technological advances.

When WordPress 6.5 is released on April 2, head over to your site, visit /wp-admin/options-general.php and add a site icon if you don’t see one.

If you want to support me working on features like this, I am looking for additional sponsors.