Html Link Without Opening New Tab

I know that some new webmasters seem to have got the impression that causing external links to open in a new window helps to keep people from leaving your website. If someone clicks on a link and wants to return to your site, they will simply hit the Back button on their browser. Most people, even non-computer-geeks, learn this feature of their browser within a short time of discovering the Internet. The power users learn, in addition, how to right click a link and select "Open in a new tab" when they need a link to be displayed in a separate tab or window.

The user should have the ability to override the developer's choice. We currently have a way to force a link into a new tab and a new window. We don't have the ability to force the link into the same window. There reasonably should be a setting to do this globally for all links, so the user doesn't have to remember to do it and they can make this decision once.

Browser setting, Always open external links in the same window/new tab/new window. Plus of course the command overrides at any time. This is very interesting because for the past 20 years we have taught our users/content creators to open new tabs/windows for external links and for files. The thought process for external links is that external isn't our content and we want that user experience of going to a different window/tab. For files, opening a new window allows the user to read that PDF, close the window/tab, and still have their session in the other window/tab. That said, all points made about forcing behaviour onto users are completely valid, it's just no use to try and battle reality with ideology.

This way the element of choice doesn't get lost by catering for expected behaviour, and all the important use cases for _self can be addressed. Speaking of UX in this decision, I'd like to see data on what users expect when clicking a link that is obviously going to leave the site. Not that designers should do something "wrong" to appease users, but if it defies majority expectations it's worthy of revaluation. Personally, I feel external links should open in a new tab.

I think that makes sense, many of the points have been made. After reading the post and comments, one current thought is to maybe do so for larger devices only. If, on the other hand, your users get annoyed and lost by new tabs or windows opening, then it's best to open links in the same tab and window. Multistep workflows in which new steps appeared in a different window or tab. In these cases, users preferred to click the Back button to get to previous steps in the process, regardless of if they were on the same or separate sites.

For example, one user was trying to submit an IT ticket to get a broken printer fixed. At first, he scanned an intranet page to understand what type of ticket to open. Next, he clicked a link he thought would take him to a form to actually open the ticket. Instead, the homepage of a completely different website appeared in a new tab. Finally, when he found the link to initiate a request on the new website, a form opened in yet another new tab.

Needless to say, he struggled to get back to the original intranet page from which he started. Opening links in new tabs was much less problematic when there wasn't a next step, and the user's task essentially concluded shortly after clicking the link. Users could simply close out of the tab without fear of losing their session history. Using a single target attribute value and reusing it in links is much more user resources friendly as it only creates one single secondary window, which is recycled. On the other hand, using "_blank" as the target attribute value will create several new and unnamed windows on the user's desktop that cannot be recycled, reused.

If you don't like that my site opened a new tab as you were intending to leave my site, go ahead and close my tab. But in my experience when a user clicks a link to an external site, they expect a new tab, and automatically close that tab when they are finished with the external content. More user experience issues are caused when people close a main window thinking it was a new tab, than the situation of back button embarrassment due to a new tab opening. I see this as a "know your audience" decision, much like support for older browsers. Some sites can toss out support for IE8, for instance. 12% are on Windows XP. Many of them are not what I would consider tech savvy users.

They log onto our site and from there often reference state or federal websites and forms. In my experience, from user feedback and user research, they want these external links to open in a new tab. If they didn't want it, we would get rid of that behavior. Directly download native files from links posted on the web. It's best to use HTML gateway pages to summarize and link to files such as PDFs, Word or Pages documents, Excel or Numbers spreadsheets, and PowerPoint or Keynote presentations.

On click of the link, directly downloading the file to the users' computer will enable them to open and edit the document in their software of choice. In some cases, this approach may be more viable than opening a PDF document in a browser. However this decision, as well as whether to open the PDF in the same tab or a new browser tab or window, is fully dependent upon what the user needs to do with it. In general, avoid PDF for on-screen reading as much as possible. I'll admit that for years I did my best to persuade clients to follow default behavior when it comes the target attribute.

Should a user have to remember and know how to special click an external link they want to open in a new tab? But they should have the ability to make that change. Since browsers don't give users that option developers have attempted to implement the preferred behavior. Give the user the power and the developer doesn't have to guess. Remembering to special click each time is too much cognitive load and is too easy for the user to forget.

I expect websites to open external links in a new tab/window and hate it when they don't. Not opening the external link in a new tab goes against expected behavior for the last 20+ years. Why do you think you have to fight so hard to get people to change this behavior. With WordPress, you have several options for accomplishing this goal. We'll look at how you can manually set external links to open in a new tab or window in WordPress. Then, we'll cover how you can use code or a plugin to automate the process.

If you're browsing the Web, it's sometimes more convenient to open a link that you click on in a new tab rather than the one you're currently using. Doing so allows you to save your progress when you're reading or completing a form on a site and simultaneously open another site for ready access. Google Chrome and other popular browsers let you do this for most sites, and if you're building your own website, you can design certain links to automatically open in new tabs. As a user, it really annoys me when external links don't open automatically in a new tab.

Then I have to hit the back button and find where I was. Also, when reading blogs, I'll often open the links I want to while reading, then go to those tabs after I finish the article. Now for that non-savvy user, the one who expects internal links to remain on the same page and externals to be in a new tab. What do you think happens when they're done browsing that external site and want to go back to the page they were on? They close the page they're on expecting to see their previous page open on the old tab.

If there's one thing they think they know about the web, it's that external links will open in a new tab. They know that because they have been made to look the fool many a time while trying to figure out how to go back to the page they were on after a page opened in a new tab. They learn it at the same time they learn there's a tabbing system in whatever browser they use.

Some people argue that users do not prefer to open links in a new browsing context. They think that doing so is similar to popup ads and other annoying behavior. With the rise of tabbed browsing, this argument has largely gone away. Most users prefer to open links in a new tab, because it allows them to come queue referenced links for later reading without losing their current browsing context.

Standard blog reading for myself, open article, read article, click on referenced articles, read those articles and often click on referenced articles in the referenced article. Trying to remember all paths in a single window and trying to get back to the original article is painful. Or cross referencing one article to the other, which is often the point is impossible in a single window. Being a smart user I often force a new tab open, but I know many that don't know how to do that. I would argue that there are far more people that know how to close a tab than to open a web link in a new tab. And then of course every once in a while I forget, then I have to do the back button mess.

After installing and activating this plugin, you can set different options for external and internal links in your WordPress dashboard. You can display an icon after external links to indicate to readers which links are pointing to other websites. You may produce a large volume of content and forget a link here or there. Or you may run a multi-author site and have trouble hardwiring this best practice into your writers' and freelancers' workflows. In either case, you would benefit from an automated solution for setting your external links to open in a new tab or window. Opening links in new windows/tabs has been a usability concern since at least '99.

Check this for reference I don't think having browser tabs changes anything. I see people all the time when testing websites where they don't realize a new window/tab is opened and they didn't realize and they try to use the back button. Anchor links1 may have a target attribute which controls what happens when that link is clicked.

One of the possible values of that attribute is _blank, which tells the browser to open a new window (or tab, if that's the user's preference) when that link is clicked. To conclude, I would restate that unless you have a very specific reason, opening links in popup window should be avoided as much as possible. But when you really have the need to do it, open just one link at a time and disable the default link behavior in order to avoid popup blockers and to give better experience to the user.

This API allows sites new additional control options. First, being able to automatically open installed apps in a window. This uses existing UI but makes it possible for the site to automatically trigger it.

Second, the capability to focus an existing window on its own domain and fire an event containing the clicked URL. This is intended to allow the site to navigate an existing window to a new page, overriding the default HTML navigation flow. Following this tutorial, you can manually or automatically set your external links to open in a new tab or window for whatever CMS that you have. Doing so will help reduce your site's bounce rate and provide your visitors with better experiences. Let's look at how you can use code to automatically set external links to open in a new tab or window.

If you don't set these links to open in a new tab or window, then readers will be redirected to the external site or blog and might not come back to yours. With readers spending less time on your site, your bounce rate will increase, which can negatively impact your rankings on search engines. For the most part, always open links in the same browser tab or window. However, if you hypothesize that opening a new tab or window may help users in their task, don't base this decision on the type of link or content alone. Rely on observational research methods, like usability testing, contextual inquiry, and field studies to help you make the right call.

This is because these file formats offer a significantly different user experience than normal HTML pages. Abrupt context switching can be jarring for people. The Window interface's open() method takes a URL as a parameter, and loads the resource it identifies into a new or existing tab or window. There actually IS a need for links to open in a new windows… sometimes.

I am designing and coding a site which collects data from users which requires them to upload files . The overall process involves employees filling out a form and then uploading receipt scans/images for reimbursement. This needs to be viewed by an admin intranet site within the office. I have a nice page displaying the claim in a cute form, easily printable if required, and links to the relevant file uploads.

I hesitate to implement UI elements/behaviors based on how I want to browse the web or, worse, how I "think" people browse the web. We need to be aware about what people expect when they interact with a UI element. Web designers/developers take for granted what they know about browsers. The majority of people, even the most savvy, don't know everything we know about browsers and all its capabilities. For example, people often go off on a tangent clicking links on the new site. What happens when an external site has links to another piece of content/site and that page uses java script to hijack the back button or onpageload with redirects?

This is frustrating for users who just can't get back via the back button. (See Nielsen's Top 10 Mistakes in Web Design for reference.) I don't think having browser tabs changes anything. I've done usability testing on sites that have links that open in new windows or new tabs where participants get totally blocked because they doesn't notice that a new window/tab was opened. On realizing they have landed on the wrong page they head straight for the Back button—and nothing happens. I've had to intervene and unblock participants in order to continue the testing. This has happened with sighted and screen reader users.

The external link is meant to provide additional information not void or displace the information you are currently reading. Further, the history of a browser window is linear, but in most cases when opening an external link you are going on a tangent. Users often get lost in the new content and forget or never go back to where they came from, unless of course you leave the original content open.

Most external links are provided as an extra source of further information and do not flow with the content you are currently reading. If the link does directly flow with the content then you would either end with the link or the content would be within the page rather than somewhere else. I don't agree, opening new windows for external links or any page that does not have your site's navigation is not only preferred by most users, its expected.

@ChrisCoyier I totally want to agree with you and in theory it makes practical sense. Facebook, Twitter, Google+ and other major social outlets use _blank linking as the default behavior. Has the prevalent use of _blank already changed what the "regular user" expects? These users spend a large amount of time on Facebook using _blank for every external link they click. Opening external links in a new tab or window will make people leave your website.