External Links in New Window / New Tab

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

1. Copy the plugin to /wp-content/plugins/
2. Activate the plugin.
3. Eventually, change the settings in Settings->External Links.

1. 

   External links settings

1.45

• 2025-08-04
• minor code fixes

1.44

• 2022-11-22
• minor security fixes

1.43

• 2022-05-06
• security fix reported by Automattic

1.42

• 2021-01-30
• added flyout menu

1.41

• 2020-10-21
• minor update

1.4

• 2019-08-26
• WebFactory took over development
• minor fixes
• 40,000 installs; 178,750 downloads

1.3.3

Verified compatibility with WordPress 5.0

1.3.2

Updated: Danish translation

1.3.1

Verified compatibility with WordPress 4.0
Added: Plugin logo for WordPress 4.0
Added: Dutch translation.

1.3

Added: Possibility to force and ignore user-defined strings in URLs. This feature has been requested.
Added: Lithuanian and Danish translation.

1.2

Added: Translation-ready.

1.1.1

Fixed: Deprecation warning (Thanks to boo1865)

1.1.0

Changed: Better practice for opening links. The plugin now uses the onClick-attribute instead of writing JavaScript directly into the href-attribute. This enables users to right-click the link and open in a new window/tab, save the target etc.

1.0.1

Fixed: Removes target attribute from links instead of setting the attribute to null. (Thanks to crashnet)

1.0

Fixed: Credits to Tom Köhler (Charset).
Fixed: Links.

0.9

Initial release.