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External Links in New Window / New Tab

by WebFactory on WordPress.org

Open external links in a new window or new tab. SEO optimized and XHTML Strict compliant.

(76)
External links settings

External links settings

Opens external links in a new tab or a or new window. You can set URLs that should either be forced to open in a new window or ignored.

The plugin produces XHTML Strict compliant code and is search engine optimized (SEO).
This is done using JavaScript’s window.open()-function. It adds only a few lines of vanilla JavaScript to the page, and does not require any external libraries like jQuery.

Most other plugins perform a hack by altering the target parameter (i.e. ). That method is not XHTML Strict compliant.
This plugin handles the links client-side, which lets search engines follow the links properly. Also, if a browser does not support JavaScript, the plugin is simply inactive, and does not result in any errors.

If you need a more advanced plugin, with more options try our free WP External Links plugin.

Credits
Inspired by the Zap_NewWindow plugin by Tom Köhler.
The banner is a photo by Monja Da Riva.

Translations
Danish by Kristian Risager Larsen
Dutch by Paul Staring
Lithuanian by Vincent G
Other translations will be appreciated!

Known bugs
The plugin conflicts with other plugins that change the links’ `onClick´ attribute.

Original developer
Kristian Risager Larsen – kezze.dk

Active installations30K+
Weekly downloads
1,838+747.00%
Version1.45
Last updated12/3/2025
WordPress version4.0
Tested up to6.8.2
PHP version5.2
Tags
external linkslinksnew tabnew windowtarget blank