External Links in New Window / New Tab

External Links in New Window / New Tab

Details
View on WordPress

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. <a href="http://somewhere.example" target="_blank">). 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

Details

Plugin code:
open-external-links-in-a-new-window
Plugin version:
1.45
Author:
Outdated:
No
WP version:
4.0 or higher
PHP version:
5.2 or higher
Test up to WP version:
6.9
Total installations:
30,000
Last updated:
2025-12-03
Rating:
Times rated:
77
external-links
links
new-tab
new-window
target-blank