Favicons and SEO

It won't rank you higher. It will change how your result looks.

A favicon is not a ranking factor, and anyone selling it as one is overselling. What it does affect is the presentation of your result: Google shows a site icon next to mobile listings, and a missing or rejected one leaves a generic globe beside your entry while every competitor shows a mark. Google also applies its own requirements before it will display your icon at all — a specific size range, a crawlable location, a stable URL, and content it considers appropriate. These guides cover those requirements, why Google may be ignoring the icon you think you published, and the realistic scope of the SEO benefit.