When is it good to use target="_blank"
-
Hi!
Just wondering about user experience and when to use target="_blank" in links on the website.
Let's take homepage, for example. Is it better to have social media icons (for Facebook page or Twitter or Google+ page) open in a new window on homepage?
When is it appropriate to use target="_blank" and when using it is too much for a user to handle?
Am I right to say that target="_blank" should be used when you don't want that link to get on the way of what visitor is doing?
What's best for conversion? If you have some resources on the subject - feel free to share them.
Thanks!
I appreciate all responses!
-
Without performing your own tests, there's no 100% best answer for each specific situation, market or site. And you'll find people even here in the Moz community who prefer remaining in the same browser window and just as many who don't.
So... all I can offer is my own experience in UX work - I've found users have an expectation that when they're clicking on a link internal to a site that they remain within the same browser window, but that when they're clicking on any link out (to another web site or social site), that opens a new window.
This is especially important however, when the destination they're going to off-site breaks browser native "back" buttons, where even if you want to go back to the site you came from, you can't.
-
It's generally agreed that a best practice in this regard is to use target="_blank" any time you are linking out to a different website. You should keep your internal links within the same window or tab unless you are linking to a part of your site that's totally unrelated or if you really don't want the user to leave the page they're on.
Additionally, if you are not using target="_blank" make sure all of your pages have clear, easily-understandable navigation, especially when it comes to linking back to your main page.
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Overlay / modal for product pages - bad or good for SEO?
Hi all, I am considering using full overlays/modals for an e-commerce site for all our product pages (category/listing pages will be "normal", the product page will come over the listing page as an overlay/modal when you click on the product). Those “product overlays” will also be accessible directly with own URL (if need to be linked to for ex.). All the literature I find out there treats overlays and modals as “marketing” ones (ads, sign-ups, etc.) and is generally critical to overlays when it comes to SEO, while also saying that an overlay that has to do with good UX should not hurt the SEO of our site. What do you think? Will all product pages as overlays be considered as good UX by the search engines and therefore not be negatively impacted, SEO speaking? Or should we stay clear of overlays and create “normal” product pages? Thanks in advance! Arnaud NB: The reason we want to create those overlays are for design and UX purposes, and try to increase our conversion rate.
Conversion Rate Optimization | | Arnaud_Fo0 -
Good Facebook Remarketing resources
Hi. Anyone know of any links with guru levels of Facebook Ads and specifically Remarketing on Facebook? Thanks
Conversion Rate Optimization | | YNWA0 -
Anyone using WebP to optimize your images? Also is there any SEO benefit to doing so?
While researching ways to optimise images for SEO and quick load speeds, I've come across this:
Conversion Rate Optimization | | adamlcasey
https://developers.google.com/speed/webp/download Is anyone using this and are you seeing any SEO benefits?0 -
How to use a large budget
Hi All, This is more of an open discussion to gather some advice / strategy tips for a large spending client - so looking for some experts tips here. Potentially, there is a large client on the horizon, with a budget for 'SEO' starting at the 15k PM region. My question is- in what way would you personally begin to utilise this budget in absolute benefit of the client. What would you propose strategy-wise to begin with, what else would you incorporate along the line? How would you generate results not just from SEO, but from additional channels? PS - They have a separate budget for PPC. An open discussion and plenty of ideas would be fantastic.
Conversion Rate Optimization | | Webrevolve0 -
Any providers offering a/b testing using JS callbacks?
Hi all, I am looking to test the impact of buy button wording on conversion rate. The website in question has a few thousand products on non-dynamic URLs. The common a/b testing products on the market restrict tests to a single URL, or you have to enter all the URLs being tested which isn't practical. Ideal Solution What I'd really like to do is: use the provider's web app to configure an experiment with a name and a description of the variations; use some JS code to run the experiment with a callback to carry out the variation. This would allow me to easily put this code on the product details page template. I've written example code below for how this would look. When the experiment is run, the provider's framework would a) tell my code what variation to run, and b) handle the measuring of conversion rate. Questions Are there any providers which work like this? Is there an alternative solution on the market? If there isn't someone already doing this, would it be useful to anyone else? Joel // Loads the provider's framework. // Setting the experiment to run when doc is ready.
Conversion Rate Optimization | | switchplane
// Assumes jQuery environment.0 -
Top 5 Conversion Rate Tips for a "Beds Shop E-commerce"
Which are in your opinion the "Top 5 things to do" to increase the conversion rate in a beds e-commerce site? The conversion is "to sell a bed" 🙂 The website is http://www.idealetti.com Thank you in advance to everyone that share his experience or give some advice!
Conversion Rate Optimization | | YESdesign0 -
How to you determine what a good CPA is on an ecommerce site?
Do you calculate shipping, warehouse cost, cost of goods into your CPA? Lets say my current CPA is $20 and average order is $100. Its 20% of each order cost goes to lets say ppc, seo, email or affiliate. Do I include cost of shipping lets say its $7.00 and cost of goods are $40.00 I end up with a profit of $33 and that doesn't include taxes, salary, warehouse cost ect. *this is all hypothetical, Im trying to see if my real CPA is inline or I should work on decreasing it. Any thoughts? Thanks
Conversion Rate Optimization | | perytestusr0 -
What is a good closing ratio? I am at 32%
I have a client I landed about 1 1/2 months ago. The only traffic coming to the site is from Google Adwords. The goal page is the "Get A Quote" page and the closing ratio is 32.4%. So about 1 in 3 visits fill out the quote form. I usually do eCommerce and I am used to seeing 2-3% goal conversions. But 32.4%???? Is that normal for a regular static site (non-ecommerce). It's been like that for a whole week! Should I toot my own horn here?
Conversion Rate Optimization | | Francisco_Meza0