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
-
Too much internal linking?
Hi everyone, Too much of anything is not good. In terms of internal linking, how many are too many? I read that the recommended internal links are about 100 links per page otherwise it dilutes the page's link equity. I have a concern about one of our websites - according to search console, the homepage has 923 internal links. All the pages have a corresponding /feed page added to the page URL, which is really weird (is this caused by a plugin?). The site also has an e-com feature, but it is not used as the site is essentially a brochure and customers are encouraged to visit the shop. I assume the e-com feature also increases this number. On the other hand, one of the competitors we are tracking has 1 internal link site-wide. Ours is at 45,000 site-wide. How is it possible to only have 1 internal link? Is this a Moz bug? I know we also need to reduce our internal links badly, however, I'm not sure where to start. I don't know how these internal links are linked together - some aren't in the copy or navigation menu. When I scan the homepage links using 'check my links', the total links identified for the homepage is only 170. kAeYlTM
On-Page Optimization | | nhhernandez0 -
To NoFollow or to NoIndex internal links
I all, I have recently taken over a fairly large e-commerce site that I am trying to "fix" and have come across something that I need a second opinion on. A Semrush audit has revealed that there are a heck of a lot of internal nofollow links (over 90 000) that point to predominantly 4 pages from the Header of each page in the site, these are change currency pages to show clients different currencies and a members login page. The pages are: /?action=changecurrency¤cy=EUR /?action=changecurrency¤cy=USD /?action=changecurrency¤cy=GBP /members/ My opinion is that these pages should just be no index pages and they should be followed. instead of being indexed and no followed? Any thoughts on this out there?
On-Page Optimization | | cradut0 -
Link in H1 tag?
Hi guys, We're working through a redesign of our product page and are considering the following: http://screencast.com/t/NBSsDGA9vgS3 Currently the product name (including the brand name - Arc'teryx) in this case is included in the H1 and none of the title is linked. You can see this here: http://www.evo.com/synthetic-jackets/arcteryx-atom-lt-hoodie-womens.aspx The firm we're working with is proposing keeping the entire title in the H1 but linking the brand name to the entire brand assortment. My concern is that the brand name is a critical part of the product title and should be text (not a link). Any suggestions? Thanks!
On-Page Optimization | | evoNick
Will0 -
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 -
Fading in content above the fold on window load
Hi, We'd like to render a font stack from Typekit and paint a large cover image above the fold of our homepage after document completion. Since asynchronously loading anything generally looks choppy, we fade in the affected elements when it's done. Sure, it gives a much smoother feeling and fast load times, but I have a concern about SEO. While Typekit loads, h1, h2 and the page's leading paragraph are sent down the wire with an invisible style (but still technically exist as static html). Even though they appear to a user only milliseconds later, I'm concerned that a search engine's initial request is met with a page whose best descriptive assets are marked as invisible. Both UX and SEO have high value to our business model, so we're asking for some perspective to make the right kind of trade off. Our site has a high domain authority compared to our competition, and sales keyword competition is high. Will this UX improvement damage our On-Page SEO? If so and purely from an SEO perspective, roughly how serious will the impact be? We're eager to hear any advice or comments on this. Thanks a lot.
On-Page Optimization | | noyelling0 -
Alt text / internal linking
Hi everyone A question about best practice when linking from pictures on our homepage - hirespace.com We have an option of using divs with background images (nicer in terms of design) but it means that we can't use anchor text or alt text to show Google what these internal links are about. The other option is to use images which do not allow us as much flexibility in terms of CSS but would allow us to use alt text. There is also an opinion that we should have separate text links at the bottom of the homepage to get the anchor page in. What is best practice in this situation - is alt text worth sacrificing some CSS flexibility for? How important is anchor/alt text for internal linking? Thanks guys.
On-Page Optimization | | HireSpace0 -
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 -
New adsense account request rejected - need help
I'm moving my company to Australia, shutting down the US company. Google said I had to request a new Adsense account, so I did. They opened the account, I added the same ads, in the same places, and they have rejected my application. What do I do now? The other account has been open since 2004. They never said a word about this before. After two years of working on improvements, now I'm just about destroyed. I need some help, because I thought I knew what I was doing, but obviously not! As usual. their helpful response is no help at all. http://bit.ly/NPACk - there are no G ads on the front page http://bit.ly/V8ubB5 - this is a typical story http://bit.ly/UpTC2r - this is a typical press release As mentioned in our welcome email, we conduct a second review of your AdSense application once AdSense code is placed on your site(s). As a result of this review, we have disapproved your account for the following violation(s): Issues: - Site does not comply with Google policies --------------------- Further detail: Site does not comply with Google policies: We're unable to approve your AdSense application at this time for one of the reasons listed below or another reason listed in our program policies ([https://support.google.com/adsense/bin/topic.py?topic=1271507](https://support.google.com/adsense/bin/topic.py?topic=1271507)). We recommend that you review the information provided below and make the necessary changes to your site. 1\. You need to improve your site’s user experience To ensure a good experience for users and advertisers, publishers participating in the AdSense program are required to adhere to the Webmaster Quality guidelines ([http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?answer=35769](http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?answer=35769)). These guidelines provide many tips to help you to provide a positive experience for your users. You’ll also find more useful information in this AdSense blog post which highlights five user experience principles: [http://adsense.blogspot.com/2012/10/publisher-insights-part-1-5-principles.html](http://adsense.blogspot.com/2012/10/publisher-insights-part-1-5-principles.html). Applying these principles will help you to provide a great experience for users on your site. 2\. Your site is a chat site which is not compliant with our policy Publishers are encouraged to experiment with a variety of ad placements and ad formats. However, as stated in our program policies ([http://support.google.com/adsense/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=48182](http://support.google.com/adsense/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=48182)), AdSense publishers may not place ad code, search boxes or search results in chat programs. This includes, but is not limited to, instant messaging (IMs), chat sites and other pages that contains dynamic content. 3\. You need to remove all content that encourages violation of Google product policies Publishers may not provide the means to circumvent the policies of any Google products, such as by allowing users to download YouTube videos, or encourage the violation of Google AdSense policies. Moreover, publishers may not make use of Google brand features such as logos, screenshots, or other distinctive features without our express permission. For more information, please visit our Help Center ([http://support.google.com/adsense/bin/answer.py?hl=en&ctx=as2&answer=1348688&rd=1](http://support.google.com/adsense/bin/answer.py?hl=en&ctx=as2&answer=1348688&rd=1)). 4\. Your site is dedicated to the sale and distribution of term papers We’re happy to see our publishers’ sites full of useful and informative content, however, as stated in our program policies ( [https://www.google.com/adsense/support/as/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=105953](https://www.google.com/adsense/support/as/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=105953) ), the sale or distribution of term papers, or any other content that is illegal, promotes illegal activity, or infringes on the legal rights of others is not allowed. Please review the AdSense program policies ([http://support.google.com/adsense/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=48182](http://support.google.com/adsense/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=48182)) to ensure that your site meets all of the requirements for approval. As soon as you’ve made the necessary changes, we’ll be happy to take another look at your application.
On-Page Optimization | | loopyal0
