# What is a favicon wall?

> A favicon wall is a shared grid where each cell shows one website's favicon and links out. How Square Town's $1 wall works and how it differs from pixel walls.

Source: https://square.pov.town/glossary/favicon-wall

A **favicon wall** is a shared, public grid of website favicons: each cell is bought or claimed by a site owner, shows that site's own favicon fetched from its URL, and links out to the site. Nothing is uploaded — the icon *is* the site's existing identity. Square Town ([square.pov.town](/)) is the canonical example: 1 square = $1, one-time, forever*. It differs from a **pixel wall** (you buy pixels and upload an image) and a **logo wall** (you upload a logo to a list or grid).

> **At a glance:** favicon wall = URL in, favicon out, one cell per site. Pixel wall = pixels in blocks, your artwork. Logo wall = uploaded logo, often a subscription.

## How it works on Square Town

Paste a URL; Square Town fetches the favicon through Google's favicon service; click any empty cell in the live area; pay $1 via Stripe. Every square is 1×1 — no sizes, uploads, accounts or subscriptions. Proof of ownership is a secret [deed](/glossary/deed) URL.

What makes it a wall rather than a directory is that the wall is a game: anyone can take your square by paying double ([eviction](/glossary/eviction)); the 4×4 centre is a single $100 [Throne](/glossary/the-throne); icons fade to grayscale after 90 days unless [kissed](/glossary/kiss-the-icon); a new [ring unlocks](/glossary/ring-unlock) each time the live area is 70 % full, up to 1024×1024 (1,048,576 squares); sites with no favicon go to the [Hall of Clowns](/glossary/hall-of-clowns). Everything is pushed live to every open browser, and ctrl+drag tilts the wall into 3D [click towers](/glossary/click-tower). Rulebook: [/how-it-works](/how-it-works).

## Where else it appears

As of August 2026, nobody else sells favicon squares. The favicon-as-unit idea shows up only in crawled or curated projects: Nmap's *Icons of the Web* (2010), a 5-gigapixel collage of the Alexa top-1M sites' favicons sized by traffic; StartupBar, a free favicon webring widget; favicon.im, a small curated directory. The nearest *paid* neighbours are logo walls (SaaSBoard, The Logo Wall) and pixel walls descended from [The Million Dollar Homepage](/glossary/million-dollar-homepage).

## Example

You run three side projects. On a pixel wall you'd design three 10×10 images nobody can read; on a logo wall you'd upload three logos and maybe pay monthly. On Square Town you paste three URLs, click three adjacent cells, pay $3, and the icons your sites already ship appear — legible at 1×1 because favicons were designed to be tiny.

| | Favicon wall (Square Town) | Pixel wall | Logo wall |
|---|---|---|---|
| What you place | Your site's favicon, auto-fetched | Uploaded image on N×N pixels | Uploaded logo |
| Unit | 1×1 square, $1 | Pixel blocks, usually 10×10 minimum | Tile or list entry |
| Design work | None | Yes | Yes |
| Can you lose the spot? | Yes — evicted for double | Usually not | Usually not |

## FAQ

### Is a favicon wall the same as a pixel wall?

No. A pixel wall sells pixels and shows whatever image you upload; a favicon wall shows the favicon your site already serves, one cell per site. Square Town is a favicon wall with pixel-wall pricing ($1 a square).

### Do I need to upload anything?

No. Square Town only needs a URL. If your site has no favicon you get a clown emoji until you add one.

### Who invented the favicon wall?

Favicon collages go back to Nmap's Icons of the Web (2010), but those were crawled, not sold. Square Town (August 2026) is the first wall where you buy a square for your favicon.

### Is a favicon wall good for SEO?

No, and Square Town doesn't claim so. Clicks are counted redirects; the value is visibility, the game and the analytics on your deed.