Nonprofit WordPress

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A Free Manual for Nonprofits

  • About
  • Search
  • WordPress Basics
    • What is WordPress?
    • Creating Content
  • Types of Content
    • Pages
    • Posts
    • Media Items
  • Content Management Basics
    • Write for the Web
    • The Perils of Poor Formatting
    • Help People with Disabilities
    • Linking to External Sites
    • Linking Within Your Site
    • Adding Images
    • Adding Documents
    • Adding Videos
  • Content Management Mastery
    • Editor Tips and Tricks
    • Linking to Email Addresses
    • Linking Within a Page
    • Redirecting Links
  • Administering Your Site
    • The Admin Bar
    • Managing Users
    • Managing Menus
    • Backing Up the Site
    • Updating Your Software

Linking to External Sites

The basics

Often we link to other websites. Fortunately, these links are simple and intuitive to create.

  1. Highlight the text that should become a link:
    page editor - highligting hyperlink text
  2. Click the link button the the editor bar:
    page editor - link button
  3. Enter the destination URL then click Add Link:
    page editor - external hyperlink URL prompt

Opening new windows

When WordPress prompts you for a link, you can make it open a new window/tab by checking Open link in a new window/tab.

In general you should not do this. 

It used to be common to open a new window when linking to an external site, or when opening a document, but this practice has generally fallen out of favor.

For years people have debated when to open a new window. Consensus from usability experts seems to have settled on this guideline:

Don’t open a new window/tab unless leaving the current page might lose the visitor’s work, e.g., they’re in the middle of filling out a form.

There are three primary reasons for this:

  1. Control. Most of the time when you click a link you don’t want a new window, and you might not appreciate the website deciding that you do. When someone does want a new window, most people know how to do that themselves. And if they don’t know how to open a new window, opening one for them is more likely to confuse than to help.
  2. “Back” Confusion. People use the Back button often. If the visitor doesn’t notice you switched them to a new window, the back button won’t work as expected.
  3. Annoyance. Too many new windows/tabs can bother people.

Creative Commons License
Nonprofit WordPress by Andrew Giesler is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
Based on a work at http://nonprofitwordpress.info.