--- title: "Google fixes a favicon bug and a Search Console crawl stats gap" url: https://surfil.com/news/search-console-favicon-crawl-stats-bugs-fixed section: news language: en published: 2026-08-24T00:00:00.000Z modified: 2026-09-25T00:00:00.000Z author: Adam Hafez topics: ["Search Console", "Technical SEO"] --- # Google fixes a favicon bug and a Search Console crawl stats gap ## The short answer Google fixed two unrelated bugs over the weekend of 22 and 23 August 2026: a favicon bug that showed a default globe icon instead of sites' real favicons in search results, and a two-day Crawl Stats data gap from around 14 to 15 August. The Crawl Stats fix landed Sunday around 5pm ET. ## Key takeaways - Google fixed two separate bugs over the weekend of 22 and 23 August 2026, as reported by Search Engine Roundtable. - One bug replaced real site favicons with a default globe icon in Google search results for about a week. - The other bug left a roughly two-day gap in Crawl Stats data starting around 14 to 15 August 2026. - Google's Rajan Patel said at 11am ET on Saturday, 22 August that a favicon fix was expected within about 12 hours. - The Crawl Stats fix landed on Sunday, 23 August at around 5pm ET, closing the gap in the report. Two unrelated Google problems closed out on the same weekend. Google fixed a bug that had been replacing real site favicons with a default globe icon in search results, and separately patched a gap in the [Search Console](/topics/search-console) Crawl Stats report, which was fixed around 5pm ET on Sunday, 23 August 2026. ## What was the favicon bug? For about a week, Google search results showed the default globe icon instead of the favicon a site had defined, for many sites. The favicon is the small icon shown beside a result, and it is part of how a searcher recognizes a brand before clicking. Google's Rajan Patel addressed it at 11am ET on Saturday, 22 August, saying it was "not fixed yet, but should be in the next 12 hours or so." By the time Search Engine Roundtable published on the Sunday evening, it reported both bugs as mostly, if not fully, resolved. ## What was the crawl stats gap? Separately, the Crawl Stats report in Search Console was missing about two days of data starting around 14 to 15 August 2026. That fix landed on Sunday, 23 August, at around 5pm ET. Google's [Crawl Stats help page](https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/9679690) describes the report as statistics about Google's crawling history on your site: how many requests were made and when, what your server responded and any availability issues. It is only available for a root-level property, a Domain property or a URL-prefix property at the root, and Google says it is aimed at advanced users; a site with fewer than a thousand pages should not need it. Google also notes the report counts most crawl requests but some might not be counted, so small differences from your server logs are expected even without a bug. ## What should you check now? If your favicon is still a globe after the fix, the cause is more likely on your side. Google's [favicon guidelines](https://developers.google.com/search/docs/appearance/favicon-in-search) say the icon must be square, at least 8x8px, with larger than 48x48px recommended. Googlebot-Image must be able to crawl the favicon file and Googlebot must be able to crawl the home page, and the favicon URL should stay stable. A quick pass through our [robots.txt tester](/tools/robots-txt-tester) will show whether either path is blocked. Google also says crawling can take from several days to several weeks, so a corrected favicon will not appear instantly. For Crawl Stats, look at 14 to 15 August again: the gap should now be filled. If the missing days led you to suspect a crawl drop, recheck that conclusion against the restored data. ## Why we care Nothing here points to a ranking or indexing problem; both were reporting and display bugs, not signals that a site did something wrong. But a missing favicon can cost click-through in a results page where the icon is part of how a user recognizes a brand, and a data gap in [Crawl Stats](/topics/technical-seo) can send someone chasing a crawl-budget problem that was never real. If either looked wrong to you in the affected window, it was very likely Google's bug, not your site's. ## Common questions ### What was the favicon bug? For about a week before the fix, Google search results showed a default globe icon in place of many sites' defined favicons. ### What was wrong with the Crawl Stats report? The Crawl Stats report in Search Console had a gap of about two days of missing data, starting around 14 to 15 August 2026, before Google restored the missing data points. ### Were the favicon bug and the crawl stats bug related? No. Search Engine Roundtable reported them as two distinct bugs, one in search result favicons and one in the Search Console Crawl Stats report, both fixed the same weekend. ## Sources 1. [Google Fixes Favicon Bug & Crawl Stats Missing Data](https://www.seroundtable.com/google-fix-favicon-crawl-stats-41928.html) - Search Engine Roundtable (primary) 2. [Crawl Stats report](https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/9679690) - Search Console Help (primary) 3. [Define Website Favicon for Search Results](https://developers.google.com/search/docs/appearance/favicon-in-search) - Google Search Central (primary)