best practices for identifying external links?

[krups]

Specifically I'm thinking about text only links where alt tags are not supported. Obviously titles are ok, but JAWs (no idea on other screenreaders) don't identify the links as external in that case.

Possibilities that have come to mind:
1. forward to a page informing user that they're leaving the site.
2. stick alt tags in anyway even though <a> doesn't support it knowing that internet explorer does.

Thanks in advance,
-Andy

[encyclo]

If you are looking to add a "tooltip" or supplementary information to an anchor, you should use

title

, not

alt

:

<a href="http://www.example.com/" [b]title="My extra info here"[/b]>external link</a>

This works cross-browser and will validate correctly too.

[krups]

sort of. the problem is that titles don't render in screenreaders (JAWs the one that we support). so there's information that visually impared users don't have access to.

[BlobFisk]

Why not add "[External Link]" at the end of the href text? For example:

<a href="http://www.example.com/" title="My extra info here">More Information [External Link]</a>

The BBC News site has a specific section for external links relevant to the content which I have always liked.

[SuzyUK]

Along the same lines as blobfisk is saying, adding in a small icon image either before or after the link text seems to be a popular choice at the minute too.

<a href="#"><img src="ico.gif" alt="external link"> Link Text</a>

[krups]

thanks all!

[g1smd]

Or... what /. does:

... and further information [domain.com] [domain.com] on this site ...

where the underlined bit is the bit you click.