

Opening external links in new window? - Everest
http://www.trilithium.com/johan/2005/03/target-blank/

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jazzychad
Sorry, but I have to disagree that it is always wrong to open links in a new
window. There are many sites (and more to come) of the "web app" variety that
carry a lot of state in the current window, and opening a link in the same
window would destroy all of the state once the user clicks the Back button. On
highly dynamic sites (like the results page on Twitter Search), navigating
away from the page for even a few seconds will change the results when
reloaded, so the user's "mental state" of the page has been destroyed. I
contend that opening a link in a new window/tab makes sense in these cases.

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jncraton
I agree. The web has changed a lot even since 2005 (when the article was
written).

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midnightmonster
If you read all of Nielsen on the topic, he actually makes an exception for
PDF's and the like: anything where users may believe they've opened another
application instead of just another page. In that case they're likely to close
the window to get back to you. If you didn't open a new window, they've now
closed their way back to your site.

Working with users, I also have found that many prefer and expect links to
other sites to open in a new window. This is 100% not my preference, and
indeed I almost find it insulting like the author at trilithium.com, but only
one of my users is me. With some reluctance I have taken to opening new
windows for PDFs, Flash apps, and on some sites any external link.

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Encosia
Every time I've conducted informal polls of my readers, the results have been
about 50/50 on this topic. It's not as cut and dried as the article suggests.
Many users even prefer same-domain links to open in a new window
automatically.

