Get website's favicon with JS

Question

I am wondering if it is possible to get a website\'s favicon by an URL with JavaScript.

For example I have an URL http://www.bbc.co.uk/ a

Answer 1

You could use YQL for that

http://query.yahooapis.com/v1/public/yql?q=select%20*%20from%20html%20where%20url%3D"http://bbc.co.uk/"and%20xpath%3D"/html/head/link[@rel%3D'icon']%20|%20/html/head/link[@rel%3D'ICON']%20|%20/html/head/link[@rel%3D'shortcut%20icon']%20|%20/html/head/link[@rel%3D'SHORTCUT%20ICON']"&format=json&callback=grab

This query used by Display Feed Favicons Greasemonkey script.

You can write queries in YQL console, but it requires to login (btw, using queries don't):

http://developer.yahoo.com/yql/console/#h=select%20*%20from%20html%20where%20url%3D%22http%3A//bbc.co.uk/%22and%20xpath%3D%22/html/head/link%5B@rel%3D%27icon%27%5D%20%7C%20/html/head/link%5B@rel%3D%27ICON%27%5D%20%7C%20/html/head/link%5B@rel%3D%27shortcut%20icon%27%5D%20%7C%20/html/head/link%5B@rel%3D%27SHORTCUT%20ICON%27%5D%22

It is better than http://www.google.com/s2/favicons?domain=www.domain.com , in case favicon exists, but doesn't located in domain.com/favicon.ico