One of my least favorite things when on a website, any website, is when I click on an external link that takes me away from the site. BAM. Just like that I’m no longer on the site I originally visited and will have to click the back arrow AFTER I’m done reading whatever it is I clicked on.
While this may seem pretty easy for most, I hop all around sites and don’t like being taken away, not to mention that I may forget to go back to the original site I was visiting. ? I’m guessing that if I feel this way, odds are your customer does as well.
Below I’ll outline the issue at hand, however, you won’t be alone if you read it and think “Jenny! What are you talking about?” My hubby says it all the time! Just shoot me a message and I’ll help you get things sorted.
So, here is the situation. In days past, you would simply enter “target=”blank”” in the HTML command for a link. It would look something like this: <a href=”www.anysite.com” target=”blank”>. However, because of the bad people out there, we now need another level of security with this. Not a biggie, but it’s a necessity. I’ll keep this in simple terms, your customer hops over to the other site you are linking to (let’s say it’s linking to an Amazon product you are endorsing) and because of the open vulnerability, YOUR site is left with an open portal. Think Avengers, and the ones coming through the portal are sitting in another country and taking all of your private information. No bueno, folks!
The brilliant developers behind WordPress have updated this for us to make it simple (if thats possible). The new links will show like this: <a href=”www.anysite.com”target=”blank” rel=”noopener noreferrer”>. And just like that you are back to being safe and cozy, AND your customer is happy that they haven’t been take away from your amazing website! ?
Again, if any of the above sounds foreign to you, and/or you are having this problem on your site, just give us a call! As always, we are here to help!
