Target="_blank"

This is a plea to all bloggers.

When writing a post that includes a link - whether it's to another blogsite, an online article, a graphic or anything else - please consider opening another browser window for the new page. Roughly half of the blogs I visit do this already - Thank You! - but the other half who don't make it difficult to return back to their site.

Here's how I read articles that are heavily linked, or rather how I read them if they're well-linked. As I read, if there's a link I want to click on I'll click it, ALT-TAB back to the original page while it's loading and continue reading. When the page loads, I'll ALT-TAB back to it, read the article or post as necessary or maybe save it for a while. I'll go back to the original page again, continue reading, opening links as they come. When external links open new windows, it eliminates the possibility of getting lost on another site. Many times I've finished an article that was linked from another site, close the window and realize I just closed the Blog I was reading that linked to it. Sometimes I'll go back, sometimes I won't but it's a pain to return once the window's closed.

It's easy to do - I don't know if Movable Type or other online services has automatic linking, but if they do just choose to open links in a new window. For Blogspot and those doing straight HTML, simply add the phrase target="_blank" to your <a href=""> tag. This will cause a new window to open whenever the link is clicked on.

Thanks for your time and attention.