Skip to content
    Moz logo Menu open Menu close
    • Products
      • Moz Pro
      • Moz Pro Home
      • Moz Local
      • Moz Local Home
      • STAT
      • Moz API
      • Moz API Home
      • Compare SEO Products
      • Moz Data
    • Free SEO Tools
      • Domain Analysis
      • Keyword Explorer
      • Link Explorer
      • Competitive Research
      • MozBar
      • More Free SEO Tools
    • Learn SEO
      • Beginner's Guide to SEO
      • SEO Learning Center
      • Moz Academy
      • MozCon
      • Webinars, Whitepapers, & Guides
    • Blog
    • Why Moz
      • Digital Marketers
      • Agency Solutions
      • Enterprise Solutions
      • Small Business Solutions
      • The Moz Story
      • New Releases
    • Log in
    • Log out
    • Products
      • Moz Pro

        Your all-in-one suite of SEO essentials.

      • Moz Local

        Raise your local SEO visibility with complete local SEO management.

      • STAT

        SERP tracking and analytics for enterprise SEO experts.

      • Moz API

        Power your SEO with our index of over 44 trillion links.

      • Compare SEO Products

        See which Moz SEO solution best meets your business needs.

      • Moz Data

        Power your SEO strategy & AI models with custom data solutions.

      NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic
      Moz Pro

      NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic

      Learn more
    • Free SEO Tools
      • Domain Analysis

        Get top competitive SEO metrics like DA, top pages and more.

      • Keyword Explorer

        Find traffic-driving keywords with our 1.25 billion+ keyword index.

      • Link Explorer

        Explore over 40 trillion links for powerful backlink data.

      • Competitive Research

        Uncover valuable insights on your organic search competitors.

      • MozBar

        See top SEO metrics for free as you browse the web.

      • More Free SEO Tools

        Explore all the free SEO tools Moz has to offer.

      NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic
      Moz Pro

      NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic

      Learn more
    • Learn SEO
      • Beginner's Guide to SEO

        The #1 most popular introduction to SEO, trusted by millions.

      • SEO Learning Center

        Broaden your knowledge with SEO resources for all skill levels.

      • On-Demand Webinars

        Learn modern SEO best practices from industry experts.

      • How-To Guides

        Step-by-step guides to search success from the authority on SEO.

      • Moz Academy

        Upskill and get certified with on-demand courses & certifications.

      • MozCon

        Save on Early Bird tickets and join us in London or New York City

      Unlock flexible pricing & new endpoints
      Moz API

      Unlock flexible pricing & new endpoints

      Find your plan
    • Blog
    • Why Moz
      • Digital Marketers

        Simplify SEO tasks to save time and grow your traffic.

      • Small Business Solutions

        Uncover insights to make smarter marketing decisions in less time.

      • Agency Solutions

        Earn & keep valuable clients with unparalleled data & insights.

      • Enterprise Solutions

        Gain a competitive edge in the ever-changing world of search.

      • The Moz Story

        Moz was the first & remains the most trusted SEO company.

      • New Releases

        Get the scoop on the latest and greatest from Moz.

      Surface actionable competitive intel
      New Feature

      Surface actionable competitive intel

      Learn More
    • Log in
      • Moz Pro
      • Moz Local
      • Moz Local Dashboard
      • Moz API
      • Moz API Dashboard
      • Moz Academy
    • Avatar
      • Moz Home
      • Notifications
      • Account & Billing
      • Manage Users
      • Community Profile
      • My Q&A
      • My Videos
      • Log Out

    The Moz Q&A Forum

    • Forum
    • Questions
    • Users
    • Ask the Community

    Welcome to the Q&A Forum

    Browse the forum for helpful insights and fresh discussions about all things SEO.

    1. Home
    2. SEO Tactics
    3. On-Page Optimization
    4. Should an internal link open in a new tab or in the same window?

    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?

    On-Page Optimization
    8
    5
    29875
    Loading More Posts
    • Oldest to Newest
    • Newest to Oldest
    • Most Votes
    Reply
    • Reply as question
    Log in to reply
    This topic has been deleted. Only users with question management privileges can see it.
    • NicheSocial
      NicheSocial last edited by

      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!

      1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
      • Saqibssheikh
        Saqibssheikh last edited by

        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 )

        1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
        • Chris_Hickman
          Chris_Hickman last edited by

          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

          Adficient.com

          1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
          • Linda-Vassily
            Linda-Vassily last edited by

            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.]

            1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
            • becole
              becole last edited by

              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.

              1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
              • 1 / 1
              • First post
                Last post

              Got a burning SEO question?

              Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.


              Start my free trial


              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.

              • See all categories

              Related Questions

              • nkolson

                City and state link stuffing in footer

                A competitor has links to every state in the U.S., every county in our state and nearby states, and every city in those nearby states. All with corresponding link text and titles that lead to pages with thin, duplicate content. They consistently rank high in the SERPS and have for years. What gives--I mean, isn't this something that should get you penalized?

                On-Page Optimization | | nkolson
                0
              • micvitale

                After HTTPS upgrade, should I change all internal links, or a general 301 redirect is better?

                I recently upgraded to https. Of course most internal links of my old posts are still http. So I set up a 301 redirect in order to make the old link works. In terms od SEO this is good or it is better to update all the internal links to https, manually? In that case can I do it in batch with a search/replace command in the phmyadmin database? any other suggested method? thank you

                On-Page Optimization | | micvitale
                0
              • DonaldS

                New site pages are indexed but not ranking for anything

                I just built this site for a client http://primedraftarchitecture.com.  It went live 3 weeks ago and the pages are getting indexed as per Webmaster Tools.  But I'm not seeing it rank for anything. We're adding blog articles regularly and used Moz Local for local links and have been building links in other local directories (probably about 15 so far). Usually I get some rankings, although very low, after just a week or two for new sites. Does anyone see anything glaring that may be causing a problem?

                On-Page Optimization | | DonaldS
                1
              • noyelling

                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 | | noyelling
                0
              • HochKaren

                Best practice for Portfolio Links

                I have a client with a really large project portfolio (over 500 project images), which causes their portfolio page to have well over the 100 links that are recommended.  How can I reduce this without reducing the number of photos they can upload?

                On-Page Optimization | | HochKaren
                0
              • AJPro

                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 | | AJPro
                0
              • Greenpeak

                What is the best setup for conical Links

                Should I have the conical link state: 1. www.autoinsurancefremontca.com 2. www.autoinsurancefremontca.com/index.html 3. autoinsurancefremontca.com Also do you need a conical link on each page if you have more than one page on your site?

                On-Page Optimization | | Greenpeak
                0
              • homebizsmart

                Landing Pages: New Domain or Sub Folder?

                I use premise for landing pages. I have some extra domain names that are fantastic in my industry. I'm wondering if I should use those domains for these landing pages? The header, nav, footer, would be the same as my main site,  the body and content would be totally different. will google penalize me if I have the same header and footer on a landing page?

                On-Page Optimization | | homebizsmart
                0

              Get started with Moz Pro!

              Unlock the power of advanced SEO tools and data-driven insights.

              Start my free trial
              Products
              • Moz Pro
              • Moz Local
              • Moz API
              • Moz Data
              • STAT
              • Product Updates
              Moz Solutions
              • SMB Solutions
              • Agency Solutions
              • Enterprise Solutions
              Free SEO Tools
              • Domain Authority Checker
              • Link Explorer
              • Keyword Explorer
              • Competitive Research
              • Brand Authority Checker
              • Local Citation Checker
              • MozBar Extension
              • MozCast
              Resources
              • Blog
              • SEO Learning Center
              • Help Hub
              • Beginner's Guide to SEO
              • How-to Guides
              • Moz Academy
              • API Docs
              About Moz
              • About
              • Team
              • Careers
              • Contact
              Why Moz
              • Case Studies
              • Testimonials
              Get Involved
              • Become an Affiliate
              • MozCon
              • Webinars
              • Practical Marketer Series
              • MozPod
              Connect with us

              Contact the Help team

              Join our newsletter
              Moz logo
              © 2021 - 2025 SEOMoz, Inc., a Ziff Davis company. All rights reserved. Moz is a registered trademark of SEOMoz, Inc.
              • Accessibility
              • Terms of Use
              • Privacy

              Looks like your connection to Moz was lost, please wait while we try to reconnect.