There has been a controversy raging for quite some time between people who say all external links must open in a new window, and others who say the links should use the same window. I say that this controversy is spurious.
What is the “controversy”?
Most proponents of using a new window are website owners, while those favoring use of the same window are web-standards supporters, often the web designers themselves.
Website owners are fearful of losing their viewers to another site. If clicking a link causes a new website to appear in the same window, then the viewer must take positive action to return to the original site. Even though there is no evidence that I know of to support viewers not coming back, owners are reluctant to take a chance on losing possible sales.
The reason for favoring the same window is that strict adherence to web standards requires not using the target attribute of the link to open a new window, as this attribute has been deprecated.
In any case, it is easy enough for the viewer to come back to the original website. He can right-click the link and select “Open in a New Window”, thereby saving the old window to return to later. Or he can just use the same window, but return to the originating website by using his BACK button.
Why is this “controversy” spurious?
To the best of my understanding, the reason for the W3C ban on the target attribute is that HTML – the language they are being “strict” about – is supposed to contain only information about WHAT is to be shown in the window of the browser. It is not supposed to concern itself with HOW or WHERE it is shown.
HOW the stuff on a web page is shown is governed by CSS. Any dynamic interactions between the browser and the viewer are the province of the DOM. So the consequences of the viewer clicking a link are supposed to be controlled by scripting.
This is why there should be no controversy. If the site owner wants offsite links to open in a new window, then the web designer can do so by using scripting. This will not violate the “strictness” of the W3C, and the webpage will validate. See the paragraph below for an easy way of accomplishing this.
Visit the author’s website, Professor’s Coding Corner for some useful code snippets and tutorials on various facets of web programming. In particular, there is some easy-to-use open new window code that will satisty strict web standards.