Discover, trust, install: FAIR 1.0 is here
External Links in New Window / New Tab
Version: 1.45
Description
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. <a href="http://somewhere.example" target="_blank">). 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
Installation
- Copy the plugin to /wp-content/plugins/
- Activate the plugin.
- Eventually, change the settings in Settings->External Links.
Screenshots
External links settings
Faq
Just use standard Plugin overview page in WordPress admin section and deactivate it or rename plugin folder /wp-content/plugins/open-external-links-in-a-new-window over FTP access.
You can report security bugs through the Patchstack Vulnerability Disclosure Program. The Patchstack team help validate, triage and handle any security vulnerabilities. Report a security vulnerability.
Reviews
Works as expected, minimal setup
By 
Download, activate, you are done. This is pretty much you need, works flawlessly.
Simple, elegant plug-in
By 
This one's going to save me a good deal of time with my new writing process. Thank you for creating it.
Work perfect
By 
It is working perfectly after installation. Don't need any setup or configuration.
Works perfectly!
By 
Great plugin, great support! Thanks!
This plug-in has fixed an 'improvement' from WP 6.3
By 
A very useful and complete plugin. Nice Open source!
By 
Thank you for this wonderful plugin, simply but powerful with the possibility to set some exclusion or inclusion of specific links.
Funciona como esperaba
By 
Me ha sorprendido gratamente lo sencillo y eficiente que es. Muchas veces los clientes que editan contenidos se olvidan de linkar correctamente los enlaces externos... así queda resuelto. Es genial
Simple yet effective
By 
Nice little plugin solve a problem faced by many bloggers like me.. absolutely recommended.
Funziona perfettamente
By 
Saved my life
By 
External links open in a new tab since I got this plugin. Thank you! EDIT: I wanted to force all my internal links to open in a new tab too, so I wrote this in the rules form: [href=”/mydomain”] (I put my domain name) and works like a charm. Great plugin!
I don´t know why my review looks like this, with these “wp:paragraph” code, I tried to get rid of those unsuccessfully, might be Gutenberg messing up paragraphs as it always does.Changelog
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.