# Frequently asked questions about Square Town

> Every question about Square Town (square.pov.town) answered: buying a $1 square, deeds, evictions, the Throne, kissing icons, ring unlocks, clowns and payments.

Source: https://square.pov.town/faq

Square Town (square.pov.town) is a favicon wall where every square is $1, one-time: paste a URL, Square Town fetches the favicon, you click the empty cell you want. Anyone can evict you for double what you paid; anyone can kiss your icon to keep it from fading; the wall grows when it's 70 % full. This page answers the questions people actually ask, grouped by topic. Each answer stands on its own.

> **The short version**
>
> | | |
> |---|---|
> | Price | $1 per square, one-time, Stripe |
> | Accounts | none — a secret deed URL is your proof |
> | Eviction | anyone can take any square for 2× what its owner paid |
> | Throne | 4×4 centre, $100 intro, doubles per eviction |
> | Decay | 90 days without a kiss → grayscale; a free kiss from anyone resets it |
> | Growth | 16×16 live at launch, +8 each side at 70 % fill, up to 1024×1024 |
> | Analytics | views, clicks, kisses free; per-day breakdown $5 once |

## Buying questions

### What is Square Town?
Square Town is a favicon wall at [square.pov.town](/): a 1024×1024 grid where each 1×1 square costs $1, one time, and shows the favicon of a URL you paste. It's a game about location — squares can be evicted for double, kissed for free, and the wall grows outward as it fills. Full rules on [how it works](/how-it-works).

### How do I buy a square?
Click an empty cell on the wall, paste your URL, press Pay, and finish the $1 checkout on Stripe. You come back with a deed link that proves you own the square. Step-by-step in [how to buy a square](/how-it-works).

### How much does a square cost?
$1, one-time, by card. There are no sizes and no subscription; every square is 1×1. Everything else is on the [pricing page](/pricing).

### Can I pick where my square goes?
Yes — you buy 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 buy 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 buying 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 bought 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.

### What happens if I don't finish paying?
Your cell is reserved for 30 minutes while you're on Stripe Checkout, shown to others as "someone is buying that square right now". If you don't pay, the reservation lapses and the cell is free again. Nothing is charged.

## Ownership and deed questions

### What is a deed?
A deed is a page at a secret URL you receive after paying: a certificate showing your domain, plot number and coordinates, price paid, held-since date, views, clicks, kisses and status. It is the only proof of ownership. More in [glossary: deed](/glossary/deed).

### Do I need an account?
No. Square Town has no accounts, logins or passwords. 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 "📜 My deeds" button on the wall lists deeds bought 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 payment is one-time and the square never expires or needs renewing — Square Town runs on Cloudflare's free tier, so there is no hosting bill to lapse. It does not mean immunity: anyone can evict you for double what you paid, and an unkissed icon fades to grayscale after 90 days (but stays yours).

### 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. 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](/blog/what-happens-when-you-get-evicted).

### How much does it cost to evict someone?
Exactly 2× the price the current owner paid. A fresh $1 square costs $2 to evict; the evictor can then be evicted for $4, then $8, $16 and so on.

### Do I get a refund if I'm evicted?
No. 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 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](/blog/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 and decay questions

### What is "kiss the icon"?
Kissing is a free, public action anyone can perform on any icon: click the favicon, press 💋. It resets that icon's 90-day fade timer, increments its kiss count, and plays a small burst on every open browser. See [glossary: kiss the icon](/glossary/kiss-the-icon).

### What happens if nobody kisses my icon?
After 90 days without a kiss the icon fades to grayscale with a 💔 in the corner. It's still yours, still clickable, still counting views and clicks — just visibly neglected. One kiss restores it.

### Can I kiss my own icon?
Yes. Every 90 days at minimum, if you care about colour. Kissing is public and counted, so the leaderboard will know it was mostly you.

### Do kisses do anything besides stop the fade?
They're counted, shown on your card and deed, and ranked on the "Kiss of the World" board. 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 paid squares cover 70 % of the live area, it grows by 8 cells in every direction — 16 → 32 → 48 → 64 … up to 1024×1024 (1,048,576 squares). See [glossary: ring unlock](/glossary/ring-unlock).

### How do I see the wall in 3D?
Hold ctrl and drag (on touch, drag up with two fingers; twist to rotate). Each favicon becomes a tower whose height is its click count, tinted with the icon's colour, with trees and lakes on empty cells and a sun that follows your local time. "↺ Reset view" returns to top-down. Why: [why the wall is 3D](/blog/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 buy dialog for a cell.

### Is the wall live?
Yes. Every buy, 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 purchase: HTTP 404 means no favicon. See [glossary: Hall of Clowns](/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](/blog/how-to-add-a-favicon).

### My favicon looks wrong or outdated on the wall. 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.

## 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?
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 on the wall the moment payment completes. If a 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 free tier. See [about Square Town](/about).

### 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, sold count, revenue, every listing with domain, coordinates, clicks, views and kisses, the Throne owner, recent events and the clown list. Purchases go through the site's checkout. Everything is documented on [the API page](/api).

### Does the wall work on phones?
Yes. Tap to buy 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's free tier and launched in August 2026. More on [about Square Town](/about).

### How do I contact Square Town?
There is no support email or form. The wall is the contact: buy a square, and your favicon says hello to everyone who visits.

### Is Square Town related to Square Town, the payments company?
No. Square Town is a favicon wall at square.pov.town, made by pov.town. Payment is handled by Stripe.