Square Town (square.pov.town) is a favicon wall where every square is free: paste a URL and an email address, Square Town fetches the favicon, you click the empty cell you want. Anyone can evict you for double what you paid, $1 minimum; anyone can kiss your icon — free, public and counted; the wall grows when it's 75 % full. This page answers the questions people actually ask, grouped by topic. Each answer stands on its own.
The short version
Price free — a URL and an email address, no card Accounts none — a secret deed URL is your proof; an email for warnings, not a login Eviction anyone can take any square for 2× what its owner paid, $1 minimum, by card Throne 4×4 centre, $100 intro, doubles per eviction Kisses free, public, counted — each one adds a storey to the tower Growth 16×16 live at launch, +4 each side at 75 % fill, up to 1024×1024 Analytics views, clicks, kisses free; per-day breakdown $5 once
Claiming questions
What is Square Town?
Square Town is a favicon wall at square.pov.town: a 1024×1024 grid where each 1×1 square is free to claim and shows the favicon of a URL you paste. It's a game about location — squares can be evicted for double ($1 minimum), kissed for free, and the wall grows outward as it fills. Full rules on how it works.
How do I claim a square?
Click an empty cell in town, paste your URL and an email address, press Claim. No card, no checkout. You get a deed link that proves you own the square. Not sure which cells are free? Press Claim a free square — the yellow button in the bar (bottom-left on a phone) — and the town walks you to the nearest one and offers it. On a mouse, resting on bare ground says whether that cell is free; the trees stand on free land, the lakes and the ring around the Throne are not for sale. Step-by-step in how to claim a square.
How much does a square cost?
Nothing. $0, no card. There are no sizes and no subscription; every square is 1×1. Money enters only when someone evicts you. Everything else is on the pricing page.
Can I pick where my square goes?
Yes — you claim the exact empty cell you click. The only cells you can't take are the Throne (the 4×4 centre) and the one-cell "aura" ring around it.
Can I claim a bigger block than 1×1?
No. Every square is 1×1; the Throne (4×4, $100 intro) is the single exception and there is exactly one of it. Nothing stops you claiming several 1×1 squares, one URL each.
Do I upload a logo?
No. You paste a URL and Square Town fetches the site's favicon through Google's favicon service. If your site has no favicon you get a clown until you add one.
Can I change the URL on my square later?
No. A square is tied to the URL you claimed it with; there is no edit function because there are no accounts. If the favicon at that URL changes, the wall picks up the new one when Google's favicon service does.
Why do you want my email?
It's not an account — there is no password and no login. The address is where your deed link can be sent, and where the warning goes when someone takes your cell. That's all it's used for.
My site is already in town, but I never claimed it. Can I take it over?
Yes, for free. Square Town seeds squares for sites it likes — the favicon is up, but there is no owner email on file and nobody holds the deed. Open the square's card: if it says "Your site? Claim the square — free", leave an email and the square and its deed are yours (the deed link lands in that inbox). Nothing is paid, nobody is evicted, and the square still costs the usual $1 to evict. A square somebody claimed themselves, or paid for, never shows the offer — only an eviction moves those.
What happens if I don't finish paying for an eviction?
The cell is reserved for 30 minutes while you're on Stripe Checkout, shown to others as "someone is already evicting this square". If you don't pay, the reservation lapses. Nothing is charged. Claims have no checkout to abandon — they're instant.
Ownership and deed questions
What is a deed?
A deed is a page at a secret URL you receive after claiming (or evicting): a certificate showing your domain, plot number and coordinates, price paid ($0 for a claim), held-since date, views, clicks, kisses and status. It is the only proof of ownership. More in glossary: deed.
Do I need an account?
No. Square Town has no accounts, logins or passwords. You give an email address when you claim, but it's for warnings and for mailing your deed, not for signing in. Your deed link is your ownership; bookmark it.
I lost my deed link. Can you recover it?
No. There is no account to attach it to and no password reset. The deed link was mailed to the address you gave when you claimed — search that inbox for "Your deed". Otherwise the "📜 My deeds" button in town lists deeds claimed in the same browser as a convenience, but if that browser's storage is cleared too, the link is gone.
What does "forever" mean, exactly?
It means the square never expires or needs renewing — Square Town costs a few dollars a month to run on Cloudflare, so there is no hosting bill worth lapsing. It does not mean immunity: anyone can evict you for double what you paid ($1 minimum).
Can I sell or transfer my square?
There is no transfer feature. Since the deed link is the ownership, giving someone the link effectively gives them the square — but Square Town doesn't broker or record that.
Eviction and Throne questions
What is an eviction?
An eviction is when someone takes your square by paying double what you paid for it, $1 minimum. They get your cell for their URL, you get an eviction notice on your deed, and the live feed announces it. See what happens when you get evicted.
How much does it cost to evict someone?
2× the price the current owner paid, with a $1 minimum. A freshly claimed (free) square costs $1 to evict; the evictor can then be evicted for $2, then $4, $8 and so on. Paid by card through Stripe.
Do I get a refund if I'm evicted?
No — and a free square has nothing to refund. The evictor pays Square Town, not you. Evictability is a stated rule of the wall from the start; being evicted is what a good spot looks like.
Can I protect my square from eviction?
Not directly. The only protection is price: every eviction doubles the cost of the next one, so a square that has been fought over becomes expensive to take. Otherwise, pick a quiet cell.
What is bulldozing?
An eviction where nobody moves in. Someone pays the normal eviction price (2× what you paid, $1 minimum) but places no URL — your square is emptied and reopens at $0, claimable by anyone, including you. Bulldozing is anonymous: no URL, no email, no name; the feed just says "🚜 Somebody paid $4 to bulldoze example.com". See bulldozing and evicting your competitor.
If I'm bulldozed, can I just take my square back?
Yes — the lot reverts to a free claim, so you can reclaim your exact cell for $0 the moment the dust settles (your eviction email even links straight to it). Of course, they can bulldoze you again. That's $1 well spent, twice.
What is the Throne?
The Throne is the 4×4 gold tile with a crown at the exact centre of the wall — one owner, first thing every visitor sees. It starts at $100 and evicting the holder costs double the last price, doubling every time: $100, $200, $400, $800… See the Throne explained.
Why can't I build next to the Throne?
The one-cell ring around the Throne is its aura, and nothing can be placed there. Try and the wall buzzes and tells you the aura is too strong. It keeps the crown visually clear.
Can two people evict the same square at once?
No. The first checkout reserves the square for 30 minutes and the second person is told someone is already evicting it ("vultures everywhere"). If the first doesn't pay, it opens up again.
Kissing questions
What is "kiss the icon"?
Kissing is a free, public action anyone can perform on any icon: click the favicon, press 💋. It increments that icon's kiss count (and the tower grows a storey) and plays a small burst on every open browser. You get five kisses per icon per hour. See glossary: kiss the icon.
Can I kiss my own icon?
Yes. Kissing is public and counted, so the leaderboard will know it was mostly you.
What do kisses do?
They're counted, shown on your card and deed, ranked on the "Kiss of the World" board — and each one adds a storey to your tower in 3D. That's it — no ranking boost, no protection from eviction.
The wall and 3D questions
Why is the wall only 16×16 at launch?
Only the central 16×16 is live at first so the wall never looks empty. When claimed squares cover 75 % of the live area, it grows by 4 cells in every direction — 16 → 24 → 32 → 40 … up to 1024×1024 (1,048,576 squares). See glossary: ring unlock.
How do I see the wall in 3D?
Hold ctrl and drag, or hold shift and press the arrow keys (on touch, drag up with two fingers; twist to rotate). The arrow keys alone pan, + and − zoom, and 0 re-centres. Each favicon becomes a tower whose height is its clicks plus kisses, tinted with the icon's colour, with trees and lakes on empty cells and a sun that follows your local time. The 2D / 3D switch bottom right jumps between the views and re-centres the map. Why: why the wall is 3D.
What do the URL parameters do?
?yaw=&tilt=&zoom= set the starting camera, ?hour=7.5 previews the sun at any hour, ?theme=light|dark forces a theme, ?tab=boards opens the leaderboards, ?open=<id> opens a square's card, ?buy=x,y opens the claim dialog for a cell.
Is the wall live?
Yes. Every claim, eviction, kiss, ring unlock and clown event is pushed over a WebSocket to every open browser as it happens (a Cloudflare Durable Object fans it out); browsers also poll every 30 seconds as a fallback.
What are the boards?
Three leaderboards in the side panel: Kiss of the World (most kissed), Clickbait Royalty (most clicked through) and Eye Candy (most viewed). Click a row to jump to that square.
Favicon and clown questions
What is the Hall of Clowns?
Sites with no favicon get a 🤡 on their square instead of an icon and a spot in the public Hall of Clowns list. Square Town checks Google's favicon service right after the claim: HTTP 404 means no favicon. See glossary: Hall of Clowns.
How do I get out of the Hall of Clowns?
Add a favicon to your site, then click your square (or open your deed) and press "I fixed my favicon — recheck". If the icon now resolves, the clown goes and the feed says you escaped. Rechecks are free and unlimited. How-to: how to add a favicon.
My favicon looks wrong or outdated in town. Why?
Icons come from Google's favicon service and are cached at Square Town's edge for a day, so a new favicon can take a while to show. Make sure the icon is reachable at your domain root or declared in your HTML, then wait or recheck.
What is Whack-a-Clown?
Any visitor can whack a clown square off the wall — free, no deed, no payment — but only a free-claim clown that is at least 24 hours old (a paid square is immune; only an eviction removes it), and only one whack lands every 10 seconds town-wide. Before the whack lands, Square Town re-checks the favicon fresh: if it now resolves, the whack fails and frees the site instead. See glossary: Whack-a-Clown.
I was whacked. Now what?
Add a favicon (five minutes: how to add a favicon) and claim a square again — squares are still free, and nothing stops you coming straight back. That was the point all along.
Analytics questions
What does Square Town count for my square?
Views (someone opened your square's card, once per browser session), clicks (someone visited your site via /go/:id) and kisses. All three are free and shown on your card and deed.
What does the $5 analytics unlock give me?
A per-day table of views and clicks on your deed page, kept forever, for a one-time $5. There is no subscription and nothing else behind a paywall.
Will my square help my SEO?
No. Clicks are 302 redirects through /go/:id and the wall itself is a WebGL canvas, so there is no link equity. Outbound clicks are tagged utm_source=square.pov.town so you can see them in your own analytics. Square Town is visibility to a niche audience and a game, not backlinks.
Money and payment questions
How do I pay?
You don't, for a square — claiming is free. Evictions, the Throne and the analytics unlock are paid by card through Stripe Checkout, in USD. No crypto, no NFTs, no invoices, no accounts.
Where does the eviction money go?
To Square Town. Evicted owners are not paid out or refunded.
Can I get a refund?
Not for evictions and not for change of mind — the square is placed in town the moment the eviction payment completes. A free claim has nothing to refund. If an eviction payment fails or is duplicated by mistake, the wall itself is the contact: there is no support address, so keep your Stripe receipt.
Technical questions
What is Square Town built on?
A Cloudflare Worker with a D1 (SQLite) database and one Durable Object for WebSocket fan-out, plus a three.js front end. It runs on Cloudflare's $5-a-month Workers plan. See about Square Town.
Is there an API?
Yes, a public read API: GET https://square.pov.town/api/state returns the whole live wall as JSON — grid size, unlocked area, claimed count, eviction revenue, every listing with domain, coordinates, clicks, views and kisses, the Throne owner, recent events and the clown list. Claims and evictions go through the site itself. Everything is documented on the API page.
Does the wall work on phones?
Yes. Tap to claim or open a card, drag to pan, pinch to zoom, two-finger drag up for 3D. It needs JavaScript and WebGL.
Questions about who's behind it
Who made Square Town?
An indie developer at pov.town, who had too many side projects and wanted one wall to put all their favicons on. It was built in a day on Cloudflare Workers and launched in August 2026. More on about Square Town.
How do I contact Square Town?
There is no support email or form. The wall is the contact: claim a square, and your favicon says hello to everyone who visits.
Is Square Town related to Square, the payments company?
No. Square (Block, Inc.) is a payments company; Square Town is a favicon wall at square.pov.town, made by pov.town, and not affiliated with it. Payment in town (for evictions, the Throne and analytics) is handled by Stripe.