While it is a common practice to open external links in a new window it should never be done without first notifying the user. There are many ways to notify your users. You can add a notice such as (opens in a new window) to the link text or the title attribute. CSS may be used to show a notice when the link is active or a small icon may be used inside the anchor tag with the alternate text set to “opens in a new window”. If your website has a lot of links the WP ADA Compliance Plugin will add the notice for you. Simply install and activate the plugin and your done.
Additional Resources:
- W3.org – Giving users advanced warning when opening a new window
- W3.org – Opening new windows and tabs from a link only when necessary
- WebAim – Links and Hypertext