Links Opening In New Windows

[Greenguy]

It's once again time to Rock The Vote

I've been thinking about my (and most other) Link List rule about not allowing links to open in new windows. Back in the day, this rule was put into place for 2 reasons:
1 - It was a pain in the ass to have your browser re-launch every time you clicked a link - and then you had all these browser's open
2 - The old Meta Refresh trick where you'd set the refresh to say 5 minutes & then send the page to a sponsor, so that when the surfer came back to your page, they'd find themselves at a paysite

But, with the invention of tabs & the lack of anyone trying #2, I've been thinking of having only external/offsite links open in a new window on my Link Lists & Free Sites.

Thoughts?

[Cleo]

The sponsor hosted stuff often has links opening in new windows so I thought you were already allowing it.

Personally I dislike stuff opening in new windows unless there is a good reason for doing it although I often overlook it.

[LD]

It's low on my list of things that bother me, and as Cleo said, you can't control a lot of the sponsor hosted ads, especially iframes and the like. I'm going with allow them.

[jollyhumper]

Normally I don't use it. But I tend to do it on links to RTA and stuff like that.
Don't know why.

I am a small yes.

[Fonz]

I'm not a big fan of links opening in new windows, but maybe that's because "I grew up" with the "no links in new windows"-rule. If it opens in the same new window every time I might be ok with it but if it opens a new window every time I tend to get annoyed fast.

[RedCherry]

I personally don't care if they open in a new window (tab). Personally, I kind of like it because then I can click, look at a sponsor (or whatever) and not have to do a bunch of backspacing to get back to where I was.

[The Epic]

I like the idea of them opening in new tabs. When I am browsing other sites for news and such I'd much rather have the links open in new tabs. Just a personal preference of mine.

[pc]

+1 for new window

[LeRoy]

+1 for new window

[Cleo]

Are we talking about promotional stuff like free sites and galleries or stuff like link lists, TGPs and blogs?

[Greenguy]

I guess I should clarify:
New Window = Still Bad
New Tab = Now Good!

And I'm talking about using it on all external links on my Link Lists & Free Sites
(because if you start opening a new tab for internal links, it's gonna get crowded real fast)

[Cleo]

Originally Posted by Greenie

I guess I should clarify:
New Window = Still Bad
New Tab = Now Good!

And I'm talking about using it on all external links on my Link Lists & Free Sites
(because if you start opening a new tab for internal links, it's gonna get crowded real fast)

Not sure how it works on a PC but on a Mac calls for a new window open as a tab unless the user has set the defaults different. But you can use JavaScript to really open a new window, but again the user can override this. I use JavaScript new windows for things that reporting a bad link and I define the size of the new window along with if it will have toolbars.

One stuff like LLs and Blogs I have internal links opening in the same window and stuff that takes you to another domain opening in new windows with the exception of listed sites and galleries and have them opening in the same window. Although there are exceptions to this if one or the other action makes more sense.

On free sites I really prefer everything opening in the same window. I will accept stuff that the ads open in a new window as this actually does make sense.

Don't want to see stuff that has images or internal links opening in a new window.

I'm an old fossil in this biz so remember another reason that new windows were banned... due to new window abuse just about everything opened in a new window and in reviewing a free site you would end up with dozens of new windows.

To be honest I care a lot more about sponsors that still have console hell. These days I review with my popup blocker turned on since I figure that's how most people surf. If I click on a sponsor and console hell gets through my popup blocking I'm unhappy.

[Greenguy]

I agree 100% with all of that, Cleo

[fetishbank]

Opening links in the same windows is very old-fashionated. I personally like site working that way - if I want, I can right click OPEN-IN-A-NEW-WINDOWS myself

Years ago I asked Fetish Bank's users if they preferred external links opening in the same window or in a new one... new window won (I remember 60something vs 40lesssomething) - I was surprised, but I changed the site accordingly.

In general I agree with Cleo. My opinion: within a site, all links should open in the same window. For the external links, they could open in another windos (tab) when the purpose of the link is to present a content that the user may want to look quickly and maybe come back to the original site. Example: term and conditions, privacy policy, a picture gallery, a freesite (that is what my user told me to do! - I disagree a little bit), a product detail page in a catalog site (even if internal) and so on... don't like images opening in a new page as well.

Google disagree. According to that rule, it should keep the search page open and open search result in a new page. It does not. When using google, I open all links in a new page and when I find what I'm looking for I finally close the seach page and keep browsing in the new window. But I guess everyone has it own browsing strategy... !

Note: a visitor sent in the same window has a higer value then a visitor sent in a new window. When a new windows open, the user already aimed the X to close the window... you're site has few seconds to look interesting before getting terminated... I think if you're sending traffic to a sponsor, using the same page the conversion ratio will be higher, especially if the sponsor is very targeted for the surfer.

[Jeremy82]

I'd prefer a new window for link-trades only. I think that today's surfer is more skilled than he was years before and it's up to him which browsing strategy he uses. I personally dislike a new window links as I use a special mouse button for a new tab opening (just one click). Actually, I don't use a new windows, I use only tabs!

[Greenguy]

Originally Posted by fetishbank

...When using google, I open all links in a new page and when I find what I'm looking for I finally close the seach page and keep browsing in the new window. But I guess everyone has it own browsing strategy...

I do the exact same thing lol

[Freedom]

I stopped submitting blogs for this very reason. Hurts bounce rate, time on site and traffic in general to have link trades not opening in a new window/tab.

[Pagan]

I must be strange.. I almost always control how I want the link to open - right click and open in a new tab mostly -- without giving the designer a say. This includes most sponsor links too as I am not sure I will want to stay on that link. If I am on a page I want to come back to eventually, I right click. If I don't care and know the link has what I want, I just click.

[the New Shemp]

i just do what the Hun does ...

[Greenguy]

I've given this much thought (once I realized that I forgot about this thread) and this morning I asked the extremely knowledgeable cd34 if he had a way to easily open all external links in a new window without having to add target="_blank" to all the links. A short time later, he came up with this:

http://devel.mia.colo-cation.com/greenie/

The code that you have to add inside the <body> is this:

<script type="text/javascript">
<!--
var localdomain='yourdomain.com'.toLowerCase();
var hrefs = document.getElementsByTagName("a");
for (var i=0, max=hrefs.length; i<max; i++) {
  if (hrefs[i].href.toLowerCase().indexOf(localdomain) == -1) {
    hrefs[i].target='_blank';
  }
};
// -->
</script>

Just swap out yourdomain.com for, what else, your domain

I'm gonna try it out on Sunshine Lesbians for a couple days & see how it goes before I implement it on LOR and the rest of the sites.

So I thought I'd post it in case anyone else wanted to try it on their sites.

...and a big THANK YOU!!! to cd34 for writing this code for me (probably from memory lol)

[Cleo]

So you are opening all links in new windows except ones on same domain?

[housekeeper]

Linking within' the site I open in same window, aff links I generally always use target="_blank" with the thinking the surfer will return to my site, particularly with respect to links within' articles. If a surfer does not set his preferences, most browsers are set to open in tabs, which to some degree I view as being the same window. I guess the question is how many surfers actually set their preferences?

[Greenguy]

Originally Posted by Cleo

So you are opening all links in new windows except ones on same domain?

Yes, which is why you have to put in your domain (for any hard coded links)