Google is testing shading and adding color and depth to favicons that they display in the search result snippets. This was spotted some time ago but it seems to be more broadly being tested now, including the shading experiment.

Here is a screenshot from Chandan Kumar from a few days ago on X – notice the three variations of the favicon:

Here are more examples from Glenn Gabe:

Check out LinkedIn’s favicon in the test. The first screenshot is current and the second is the test. Interesting… pic.twitter.com/7ZFoHOUOd2

— Glenn Gabe (@glenngabe) November 20, 2023

And more:

Google is adding a nice little background to 301 URLs in search results.

Did anyone notice?@rustybrick #SEO pic.twitter.com/PDIrEOkd0w

— Chandan Kumar (@ConnectCK) November 16, 2023

Are you okay with Google changing how your favicon colors and shading looks?

John Mueller of Google did reply to this on Mastodon saying to Glenn Gabe, “I like when the favicons look good cropped round – these experiments are interesting to see, thanks for flagging them.”

Forum discussion at X.