Links should open a new window? Want to bet?

In the comments on my post that the best blogs send their audience away quite a few folks are saying that links should be set to open a new window. I strongly disagree.

And two commenters give the ‘new window’ junkies a challenge.

Greg Storey bets you can’t find a usability expert who would agree with you.

I’ll pay $100 to the first person who can quote a well-known and well respected, published, web usability expert who says having links open a completely new browser is a good idea (note: said quote must come from after the turn of the century). It was a nifty idea back in the late 90’s but it’s common knowledge among web producers that using target=”_blank” is a bad idea.

Firefox and Safari (IE whenever they can pull their apps out of gamma) allow users to chose to open links in new tabs — or a new window if the pop-up options don’t block it first — and that’s the way it should be.

Christian Montoya challenges folks to find a top blog that sets links to open new windows.

You guys are all quite dense. If you had read the above entry, you would have noticed that the following point is being made:

“The best blogs [which you wish your blog was one of them] send [their] audience away [which means, they DO NOT try to keep users]”

Your insisting on keeping users on your blog by having links open in a new window is exactly the problem. The best blogs send users to other sites, and those users come back time and time again looking for more new stuff. Get it now?

(In case you still don’t, visit Technorati.com and check out the top 100 blogs. Go through them all and see how many open links in new windows. I can assure you that the top 5 DON’T. If the best bloggers don’t do it, why do you?)

Games on.