Moz Q&A is closed.
After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.
Should an internal link open in a new tab or in the same window?
-
Should an internal link open in a new tab or in the same window?
Seems like this is an issue that has never had a definitive answer one way or the other. But I couldn't find any recent articles from reliable sources taking a stance and answering this question.
Does anyone know if user engagement metrics (time on site, bounce rate, pages per visit) are impacted if a user clicks a link that opens in a new tab? Thanks!
-
Internal links should be on the same page, for the most part. The exception, like Emily, said, would be if the link is unrelated and you want them to come back to the original content (e.g. opt-in landing page linked from a blog post). External links in a new tab! For example, this is a link (opens in a new window) And External Link ( Visit Website )
-
Hello,
There is no definitive answer, it really comes down to how you want people browsing your website. For instance, I would suggest a user stay within the same tab if they click from one blog article to the next. There's no reason they need to have a new tab opened. Now if they are on a product page and you have a suggested items section, once they click the suggested item should open in a new tab. This will let the user remember what they were originally browsing along with seeing additional products.
Also, I believe many users get suspicious once a new window opens when they click something. If they are expecting to stay within the same window or even tab. It can look spammy or like an ad/pop up, which could result in closing all.
Browse any major website, how often are you forced to open a new tab or window? Hardly ever, the only time it happens is when you are leaving the main URL.
I hope this helps.
Chris Hickman
-
I agree with Bernadette, internal links should open in the same window. [This is despite the fact I personally like to open things in new tabs, or even better, new windows.]
It is the default and what people expect and they also have the option to open in a new tab/window if they prefer.
There are many navigation/UX conventions across the Internet and they help us know what to do when we go to a new place. Yes, there are sometimes reasons to go against convention, but they should be thought out.
If your internal links always open in new tabs and your website has interesting content that someone is browsing through, things can get messy pretty quickly...
[Have you ever clicked on a link and had the new tab come up behind your open window? That is the worst--easy to miss it altogether.]
-
Based on our experience, we generally think that as long at you're on the same website, links should open up in the same window. They should not open in a new window. If you are going to open a link in a new window, then you'd want to notify the user that you're going to do that by telling them before they click the link.
For example: this is a link (opens in a new window)
This is a general user experience issue. While I don't necessarily have any specific stats to show, it just makes sense.
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
-
Link flow for multiple links to same URL
Hi there,
On-Page Optimization | | doctecs
my question is as follows: How does Google handle link flow if two links in a given page point to the same URL? (do they flow link individually or not?) This seems to be a newbie question, but actually it seems that there is little evidence and even also little consensus in the SEO community about this detail. Answers should include source Information about the current state of art at Google is preferable The question is not about anchor text, general best practises for linking, "PageRank is dead" etc. We do know that the "historical" PageRank was implemented (a long time ago) without special handling for multiple links, as e.g. last stated by Matt Cutts in this video: http://searchengineland.com/googles-matt-cutts-one-page-two-links-page-counted-first-link-192718 On the other hand, many people from the SEO community say that only the first link counts. But so far I could not find any data to back this up, which is quite surprising.0 -
Removing navigation menu items/links on homepage
We are redesigning our website after a long stint with an SEO firm who also handled our design/dev. We want to clean up the links on our homepage but don't want to screw up our IA or SEO. We want to delete some navbar menu items and a whole bunch on random links to our evergreen content below the fold. Would we need to reposition those navbar items/content links to our footer or somewhere else on the homepage to maintain our internal linking structure? It would be great if you could take a look at our site and give us any suggestions or advice on the best way to go about this. Thanks!
On-Page Optimization | | Lorne_Marr1 -
Duplicate anchor text vs poor relevance in internal links
We're writing a number of blog posts, all based around a particular head-term (call it "women's widgets"). Each post will be centered around a different long-tail keyword (e.g. "women's brandA widgets", "women's brandB widgets", "women's type1 widgets", etc.). We want to link from the blog posts back to the main "women's widgets" category-level page on our site. Should we: a) Use the words "women's widgets" in each blog post and link that to the "women's widgets" page? This would be the most relevant, but it also seems like using the same anchor text on all of the posts, and linking to the main page, is not good since Google doesn't like seeing the same exact anchor text all the time, right? b) Link the long-tail keyword ("women's brandA widgets") to the main "women's widgets" page? That would solve the anchor text duplication issue, but then the anchor text doesn't seem relevant to the page being linked to (it might never mention "brandA" on that main page at all), and I think it would also hurt the blog post's chances of ranking for the long-tail keyword since we're basically saying that there's a more relevant page for that keyword somewhere else (i.e. you shouldn't link out from a page using the phrase you're trying to optimize that page for). c) Link a nearby word/phrase instead? For example, we could say "Trust Companyname.com for your women's widget needs", and link "Companyname.com" to the "women's widget" page. By proximity to the keyword phrase, that may help a bit, but again the relevancy of the anchor text to the page being linked to is fairly low. I'd hate to have a bunch of "click here", "read this" or "company name" anchor texts being used, just in the name of not overusing the head-term in the anchor text. Are we just missing something, or misunderstanding Google's preferences? What do you do when you don't want to overuse a keyword in anchor text, but you still want to link to a main category-level page using the head-term in order to tell Google that that is the most relevant, best page for that keyword? Is anchor text duplication more of a problem for external backlinks, and less of an issue for internal interlinking? Do you have a different suggestion, other than what I outlined above? Thanks for the help!
On-Page Optimization | | BandLeader
John0 -
Does the link title attribute benefit seo?
Hello, Anyone could tell me the benefit SEO of link title attribute. Is **Link Title **ranking factor? Thanks
On-Page Optimization | | JohnHuynh0 -
Reducing number crawl-able links?
Hello, I just like to ask for best practice when it comes to reduce number of internal links on a site with a mega menu. Since the mega menu lists all categories and all their subcategories it creates a problem when all categories are linking to all categories directly.. Would the method below reduce the number of links and preventing the link juice flowing directly from category to category? [(link built with JavaScript and the html5 "data-" attribute) Thinking of using these links to categories in the menu not directly below the parent category.](#)
On-Page Optimization | | AJPro0 -
How many outbound links is too many outbound links?
As a part of our SEO strategy, we have been focusing on writing several high quality articles with unique content. In these articles we regularly link to other websites when they are high quality, authoritative sites. Typically, the articles are 500 words or more and have 3-5 outbound links, but in some cases there are as many as 7 or 8 outbound links. Before we get too carried away with outbound links, I wanted to get some opinions on how many outbound links we should be trying to include and more information on how the outbound links work. Do they pass our website's authority on to the other website? Could our current linking strategy cause future SEO problems? Finally, do you have any suggestions for guidelines we should be using? Thank you for your help!
On-Page Optimization | | airnwater0 -
Wordpress category links not working
Hi All of sudden, my category links are not working. Any tips on figuring out what's causing this? Looks like permalink problem with newer wordpress version. I turned off all the plugins see if this cause any problems. Still not being able to find any option. Here's my site http://www.hibebefetaldoppler.com/fetal-doppler-questions-and-answers/ Thanks in advance
On-Page Optimization | | BistosAmerica0 -
Footer link to home page?
Quick question - is it a best practice to add a footer link on each page of a website that points back to your home page, with the anchor text being your official brand name?
On-Page Optimization | | Bandicoot0
