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WordPress SEO for WordPress Content Comes First How to Use Links in WordPress for SEO

Jason Anders
MOD
Jason Anders
Treehouse Moderator 145,860 Points

Open links in a New Window ... or not?

Zac Gordon explained very well how to add links to your posts both for a better user experience and for optimal SEO, but one thing that he didn't touch on was the "open link in a new window" option.

I'm curious, if you are linking to external sites that are not your own (or even within or to your own sites), should you enable the "open link in a new window"?

Currently, I do, because I feel there is less of a chance of you losing the 'visitor' if they have to go back to the original window/tab rather than having to hit the 'back' button.

What is the best practice? Or, is it just a matter of preference? What do you guys think?

:)

1 Answer

Colin Marshall
Colin Marshall
32,861 Points

I used to do it like you do with external links opening in a new tab/window until somebody on here pointed me to this article on CSS Tricks:

When to use target="_blank"

Jason Anders
Jason Anders
Treehouse Moderator 145,860 Points

Awesome link. Thanks Colin. Definitely shows a different perspective on what I was thinking. :)