Statutory notices - Durham County Council

Councillors & MPs - Durham County Council

Council Performance - Durham County Council

Keep your home warm - Durham County Council

A to Z - Durham County Council

Planning, Property & Environment - Durham County Council

Rubbish & Recycling - Durham County Council

Abandoned vehicles - Durham County Council

Moderation - Durham County Council

Avoid opening links in a new tab or window. Where you must do this, include an explanation
in the text of the link.

## Why this matters

Opening links in a new tab or window breaks the back button and can be disorientating for 
novice web users, and the visually impaired. Generally you should avoid opening links in a
new tab or window, but if you have to, you should include text explaining that this will happen.

## How to fix

An explanation must be clear in the accessible text for the link. For example:

```html
<a href="products.html" target="_blank">
    Products (opens in new window)
</a>
```

Or, for an image inside a link:

```html
<a href="products.html" target="_blank">
    <img src="products.jpg" alt="Products (opens in new window)">
</a>
```

Rather than updating all of your links manually to do this, you can add a simple CSS
selector, such as:

```css
a[target="_blank"]:after {
    content: " (opens in new window)";
}
```

Note that doing this with an icon, is not sufficient to pass this check. The text must be
readable by screen readers.

Alternatively you can override the link text for accessible technologies (like screenreaders),
so that the appearance of the link does not change. For example:

```html
<a href="products.html" target="_blank" aria-label="Products (opens in new window)">
    Products
</a>
```

Note that if you do this, the `aria-label` will replace the text content of the link completely,
so it must still make sense in isolation.

## Terminology

Although it is common to say "opens in new window", almost all browsers now use tabs, and
so this terminology is potentially confusing. You may prefer: "opens in new tab".

## Methodology

1. Silktide considers all links on a page with a `target` attribute of `_blank`.
2. For each link, Silktide considers the screen-readable text of the link, which includes:
   * The text content of the link
   * Any `alt` text inside any images inside the link
   * Any `aria-label` or `aria-labelled-by` text
   * The `content` of the pseudo-elements `:before` and `:after`
3. This text is analysed for the presence of common text, including "opens new tab"
    and "opens new window". If the text is not found, the link fails the test.

## Further reading

Generally best practice is to avoid opening links in a new tab or window.  

The W3C provides detailed guidance on 
[when opening a link in a new window may be appropriate](https://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG20-TECHS/G200.html).

link-text-explains-open-in-new-window

April 2025

March 2025

Durham County Council

Title / URL	Issues
Statutory notices - Durham County Councildurham.gov.uk/StatutoryNotices	2
Councillors & MPs - Durham County Councilwww.durham.gov.uk/councillorsinfo	1
Council Performance - Durham County Councilwww.durham.gov.uk/performance	1
Keep your home warm - Durham County Councilwww.durham.gov.uk/warmhomes	1
A to Z - Durham County Councilwww.durham.gov.uk/article/4004/A-to-Z?tag=B	1
Planning, Property & Environment - Durham County Councildurham.gov.uk/planning	1
Rubbish & Recycling - Durham County Councildurham.gov.uk/recycling	1
A to Z - Durham County Councilwww.durham.gov.uk/article/4004/A-to-Z?tag=F	1
Abandoned vehicles - Durham County Councildurham.gov.uk/abandonedvehicles	1
Moderation - Durham County Councildurham.gov.uk/article/2874/Moderation	1

Ensure links explain they open in a new tab

Durham County Council

Where this issue has occurred