---
title: "Google fixes Search Console favicon bug and a crawl stats data gap"
url: https://seomadman.com/news/search-console-favicon-crawl-stats-bugs-fixed
section: news
published: 2026-08-24T00:00:00.000Z
modified: 2026-08-24T00:00:00.000Z
author: Adam Hafez
topics: ["Search Console", "Technical SEO"]
---

# Google fixes Search Console favicon bug and a crawl stats data gap

## The short answer

Google fixed two unrelated Search Console bugs on Sunday, 23 August 2026, around 5pm ET: a favicon bug that replaced real site favicons with a default globe icon in search results, and a two-day Crawl Stats data gap starting around 14 to 15 August. Google's Rajan Patel had flagged the favicon fix as roughly 12 hours out the day before.

## Key takeaways

- Google fixed two separate Search Console bugs on Sunday, 23 August 2026, at around 5pm ET.
- One bug replaced real site favicons with a default globe icon in Google search results.
- 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 on Saturday, 22 August that a favicon fix was expected within about 12 hours, before it actually shipped the next day.
- The two bugs affected different Search Console surfaces and were fixed on the same day by coincidence.

Two unrelated Search Console problems closed out on the same day. 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, both around 5pm
ET on Sunday, 23 August 2026.

## What was the favicon bug?

For about a week, Google search results showed a generic globe icon instead of a site's real
favicon for many sites, unrelated to any change the sites themselves had made. Site owners flagged
it in Google's help forums as the icon most searchers use to visually confirm a result before
clicking.

Google's Rajan Patel addressed it directly on Saturday, 22 August, saying the fix was "not fixed
yet, but should be in the next 12 hours or so." The fix landed the following day, Sunday 23
August, around 5pm ET, roughly a day after that estimate.

## What was the crawl stats gap?

Separately, the Crawl Stats report in Search Console, the tool that shows how often Googlebot
requests a site's pages, was missing about two days of data starting around 14 to 15 August 2026.
Google restored the missing data points on the same Sunday as the favicon fix, around 5pm ET.

## 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.

## Frequently asked questions

### What was the Search Console favicon bug?

For roughly a week before the fix, Google search results showed a default globe icon in place of many sites' real favicons, even though the sites' favicon setup had not changed.

### 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 on two different Search Console surfaces that happened to be fixed on the same day, Sunday 23 August 2026.

## Sources

1. [Google Fixes Favicon Bug & Search Console Crawl Stats Bug](https://www.seroundtable.com/google-fix-favicon-crawl-stats-41928.html) - Search Engine Roundtable (primary)