anchor text links and target="_blank"

it will affect my link?

[Josecito]

hi, guys, i want to know if i add to my links the modifier target="_blank" will google ignore my link.

can someone know something abt that?

thanks for your help.

[abates]

No, Google will still follow the link. I have several backlinks to my site which have a target tag like that.

[Josecito]

you are 100% sure?

can someone else reply this post? thanks

[mrguy]

Why would not Google follow it.

I put all links from my site to others in a "blank" as I don't want to lose them from my site.

Never had a problem with links not being counted for them or me as well.

An HTML link is an HTML link.

You run into problems with some scripts that produce or track links.

[abates]

I just checked my backlinks, and they are showing sites which link to me with a target tag, so yes, I'm sure. :)

[Dave_Hawley]

Josecito, why would you think Google would ignore those links?

Dave

[plasma]

you are 100% sure?

can someone else reply this post?

1000%

thanks

np

[Gert_Jan]

Yes I can also assure you this

[creative craig]

I use the target="_blank" alot in all of my sites and never have a problem with Google following them.

[isorg]

No probs with target="_blank"!

[Yidaki]

Just in case you need another me too post - here it is. :)

[freddoo]

google follows links wherever they are displayed.

google is not using a browser , it retreives url , then picks up the html result.

so YES it will be picked up

[Josecito]

thanks my friends :)

[Jack_Straw]

I can also confirm that googlebot follows links with a target=_blank parameter.

But, there is another issue which is more subtle and less clear.

I have evidence that PR is not fully passed to to the linked page. It appears as though only half the PR that you would pass from a non targeted link is passed to the targetted link.

If true, this makes links from sites that use the target parameter much less valuable. And, it is a way to link to others, but have less PR "bleed".

This makes some sense considering the theory of operation of PR and the fact that both the original and linked to page are now viewed.

Can anybody confirm or deny this?

[dirkz]

Can anybody confirm or deny this?

I can neither confirm nor deny based on facts. All in all I don't even care much about PR.

As a rule of thumb I use target="_blank" to all external links (to other sites) and never use it with internal links.

I have evidence that PR is not fully passed to to the linked page.

Which evidence are you talking about? Keep in mind that the TPR is rather bogus anyway, and you can't determine the RPR (real PR) used internally by Google. A link from a TPR(X) page sometimes make the linked page TPR(X-1), sometimes TPR(X) (though never a TPR(X+1) :). It's also depending on other factors like other outgoing links.

[Josecito]

so if i have all my links with _blank, google will count it as out links, right?

and the target "in link"?

[CCowboy]

A hard link is a hard link...

That's not hard to understand is it?

[dirkz]

so if i have all my links with _blank, google will count it as out links

Who said this?

The problem with your question is that no one really can proof anything. This is inherent to SEO, unless you make experiments under hard constraints and post the results.

Nearly All you can read on WW is "educated guesses".

So maybe you should try the version out you think is suitable, meaning gives your visitors the best usage experience of your site.

IMHO the use of target does NOT give less weight to a link (why should it?) but I just can't proof it.

[AthlonInside]

if _blank _blank _blank isn't great, then you can use target= widget or wodget or wedget as they will open it in a new window also.

So do you think Google detect for widget wodget and wedget too? :)

[Josecito]

hehe, ok, ill still using the _blank tag :D

[dirkz]

hehe, ok, ill still using the _blank tag :D

AthlonInside, after having convinced Josecito to leak PR with _blank attributes we can now stick to our non-target links in order to not lose PR :)