External Links to open a New tab

Internal vs. External Links

With Grateful thanks to Marianne......

Links that take users to another page on the same website are internal links. Internal links should never open in new browser tabs, but rather the same tab the user is on. Opening new tabs of the same website is redundant and confusing for users. If it’s the same website but a different page, the site’s navigation menu is still visible to users. They can simply use the menu to navigate back or elsewhere if they need. Keeping users in the same tab also helps them better understand the navigation flow of your site. Therefore, it doesn’t make sense to open new tabs if the links take users to the same website.

External links, however, should open in new tabs. These links take users to a different website. Many designers make the mistake of opening external links in the same tab. There are many problems with this that designers need to know about, you are left with no return if you close the external link page. To retain an open tab back to your site use the

All you have to do is add "target=_blank" right after the URL to which you are linking. This opens a brand new tab and a new window. To get back to your site, all your visitor has to do is click the tab with your site open.

Now, you might be thinking to yourself, "I can use that all the time!" If you use this code on every single one of your links that simply links to another page in your site, then the visitor will wind up having several of your site's pages open in several different tabs and windows.

While you might think that's a great way to allow an easy means for your visitors to go back to already visited pages, your visitors might view that as an extreme annoyance. If each of your links opens a new window that means your visitor will have to close each of those new windows. The annoyance factor on that alone could drive the visitor away from your site forever.

If you are concerned that your visitor is a web newbie and they aren't sure about the Back button, then by all means make sure that you have links on your page so that the visitor can easily find their way back to where they were. Once upon a time, many sites relied on breadcrumb trails so that a visitor could visually see, and click, back to where they were.

This practice died off due to many questions on the trails purpose and how they worked. The best practice is to ensure that you have clear and obvious links along either the top of the page or running along the left side of the page. That way, the visitor does not need the Back button, you don't need an unintentionally confusing breadcrumb path and you most certainly do not need to use "target=_blank" for each and every link.

Use "target=_blank" judiciously and only for links that take your visitor to other sites. 

Open a Page in a New Window

To have a link in which, when a viewer presses it, will open a page in a new window, you need to listen to this:
Insert something like this: within < and> of course. I can't type that here as it will convert the coding to the link only as open google in a new page. what you want is target=_blank.

A HREF="http://www.google.com/" TARGET="_blank">Open Google in a New Window

And look at what happens:
Open Google in a New Window
You see?

Back-Button Fatigue
When you open external links in the same tab, you create back-button fatigue for users. Every time the user goes to an external website they have to hit the back button to go back to your website. If they decide to click the links on the other website, they have to hit the back button even more times to get back to your site. This is a lot of unnecessary work for users.
Opening an external link in a new tab allows users to explore the other site as much as they want without having to hit the back button again and again to go back to your site. All they need to do is click the tab your site is on. There’s no excessive back-button pressing or long wait times.