Interesting. What would be Google's reasons for weighing those that don't open in a new widow higher? I personally like the ones that open a new window. If after a few clicks I find its not the info that I am looking for, I can close it and still have the directory open without having to back click 4 or 5 times.
I gotta say that this doesn't make any sense to me about whether you open the link in a new window or the existing one. Not sure what the OP is impying here.
Don't know if google does anything different with sites that open in new windows and I really don't care. The whole object of a directory is to keep visitors at the directory. How many visitors does a directory lose with links opening in same window? I rarely use the back button on my browser, I just continue on. So if I am at a site and I click a link and it opens in the same window, that site has lost me. Anyways, interesting subject and would really need a lot of grunt work to see if site opening in new windows is better for a directory as opposed to opening in the same window.
Someone asked why Google may downrate target=_blank links? I can totally understand why, because it's not a wholehearted vote for the destination address, more of a half-vote since it implies 'go there, but don't leave here'. I'd even go so far as to say sites that routinely set target=_blank on all offsite links are amongst the less trustworthy, so it may be part of Google's trustrank algo? Very interesting theory worth a little investigation.
Here is what google say about links and design: Bad links google webmaster stuff And what we know already: webmaster guideline It doesn't say anything about target="_blank" anywhere Seriously i've been looking arround using google and yahoo with keywords like "target blank seo myth", "target blank google guideline" yada yada... That'd be interesting to see someone coming with some crusty informations about that
It also doesn't say anything about relevant backlinks or keyword stuffing, but we all know those are important factors.
having a target="_blank" attribute does not and should not matter. In fact, as a web surfer I appreciate this attribute because I don't always want to leave the web site I am currently viewing...especially when many webmaster disable the back button. As someone mentioned above, there is no logical reason to devalue a link for this reason. If you think about it from the perspective of the webmaster, the target="blank" attribute is used so that the vistor would not leave the site. Plain and simple. On the other hand, placing a nofollow attribute suggests that the webmaster is not able to vouch for a link on his/her site...in which case google and other SE's don't recognize it as a vote. The nofollow attribute is not a means of dealing with questionable sites...but rather, it's use stems from design/usability. It's like saying google devalues links in red because the color red has a negative connotation or that links that aren't underlined are not as important as links that are underlined. The ONLY way to really know is to find out from Google or other SE's...and unless you hear it directly from them, I wouldn't lose any sleep over this.
Well thanks rzvagelsky for putting together a very well thought out opinion, whether all agree or not, I believe your comments deserve some green
Not sure that I can agree that the use of target="_blank" should mean a link is worth more or less than a link that doesn't. For what it's worth, we do not use it at Strongest Brands. IIRC, it's use is contrary to strict XHTML standards, so if your doctype specifies xhtml strict, you shouldn't be using them.