Creating in-text links with ' 'target=_blank' - helping/hurting SEO!?!

[NiallSmith]

Good Morning Mozzers,

I have a question regarding a new linking strategy I'm trying to implement at my organization. We publish 'digital news magazines' that oftentimes have in-text links that point to external sites.

More recently, the editorial department and me (SEO) conferred on some ways to reduce our bounce rate and increase time on page.

One of the suggestions I offered is to add the 'target=_blank" attribute to all the links so that site visitors don't necessarily have to leave the site in order to view the link.

It has, however, come to my attention that this can have some very negative effects on my SEO program, most notably, (fake or inaccurate) time(s) on-page.

Is this an advisable way to create in-text links? Are there any other negative effects that I can expect from implementing such a strategy?

[OctaRendra]

In my opinion it doesn't hurt SEO

[donford]

My advise is act like a user, what do you prefer having a new window open up on you, or have the page you're looking at change? I say this because user experience is very important and hurting user experience so you can gather data doesn't seem like a win win scenario. Consider your users first, and deal with the metrics the best you can.

The answer isn't always clear depending on what the page is, and where the link is to. Example SEOmoz generally follows my rule of thumb which is for internal links _parent (self) for external _blank (new). The exception is on their search results which will open in new windows and makes sense to me.

Just my advise hope it helps.