Re-examining target=“_blank” in 2026

There was a time when I would blindly apply conventional web standards without a second thought. Depending on the people you asked, this is either a good quality in a web developer, or an inflexible annoyance.

The people in question fall into one of two categories: The web developers, or the stake holders and management, and it’s the latter that become annoyed when I push back against the often asked “Can we make it open in a new tab?” request.

On the surface the request seems innocuous, but in reality there are many legitimate reasons – which are based on decades of user research – to not force pages to open in a new tab.

The conclusions of said research can be boiled down to:

Forcing a new tab is not what the user asked for
People already know how to open pages in new tabs, but forcing it takes that choice away from them.

Accessibility
Unexpected new tabs can confuse screen readers, keyboard users and less experienced users. As someone who for a long time worked exclusively on making a website accessible for people with disabilities I can personally vouch for this. I’ve seen less experienced users (typically elderly) get confused by new tabs time and time again.

It’s easy to not even notice on mobile devices
On small screen devices, depending on the implementation, new tabs are less obvious and many users won’t even notice when another tab opens, making navigation confusing. This is easy to test in the real world. The last time I looked at Chrome on my mothers’ phone, she had 187 tabs open – and had no idea what I was talking about when I explained what tabs were.

It breaks the browser navigation
Modern browsers are incredibly good at managing navigation, and are designed around the assumption that websites won’t arbitrarily change their behaviour.

When sites force new tabs without a compelling reason, they’re effectively relaying to the user “We know better than you or the browser about how you should navigate”.

These are all legitimate concerns, but the perspectives of stakeholders and web developers don’t always align. When asked why they want something to open in a new tab, the responses are the usual suspects about not wanting users to leave the website, or worse, anecdotal ‘evidence’ based on personal experience. That’s why I’ll always ask them to justify it with a reason that has nothing to do with their personal preferences.

Let’s address the usual suspects one at a time.

“We don’t want people leaving our website.”
They see an external link (in the same tab) as a potential exit point, and incorrectly assume that opening the link in a new tab would mean the user stays on their site. This justification is on par with bigger logo cream logic, because in reality, if a user wants to leave your website, its their choice, and they can simply close it regardless.

“My wife prefers it when links open in a new tab”
Anecdotal evidence is not just vulnerable to bias, but also and an incredibly weak foundation for making UX decisions. Web standards are built upon decades of broader evidence that exists precisely to avoid designing around personal biases.

Conclusions

In 2026, the current consensus remains unchanged. For content-driven websites, allowing links to open in the same tab is still the preferred default because it respects user choice. Those who want to open a link in a new tab already have multiple ways to go about it, including Ctrl (or Cmd) and Click, middle-click, or use the browser’s context menu. And if they don’t, it doesn’t matter that they navigated away in the same tab.

The only possible exceptions are for web applications, admin interfaces, project management systems, and other productivity tools, where opening certain external links in a new tab can help users maintain an uninterrupted workflow. Similarly, links to downloads, PDFs, payment gateways, and reference documentation may also benefit from opening in a new tab, but only if there’s genuine belief that it improves – not worsens – the user experience.

Ultimately the decision should always be driven by the user’s needs. Modern browsers are designed to give users control over how they get around the internet, and good web design choices honour those conventions rather than ignoring them.

If in doubt, just ask: Does opening this link in a new tab make the experience better for the user, or better for the website owner?