[whatwg] Target Attribute Values

Smylers Smylers at stripey.com
Sat Apr 28 04:20:45 PDT 2007


Lachlan Hunt writes:

> Charles Iliya Krempeaux wrote:
> 
> > In the online advertising business, ads are usually put in <iframe>
> > s for security reasons...
> > 
> > So... if you didn't use a "_blank" for the target, the landing page
> > for the ad would open up in the tiny <iframe> (instead of a new
> > window).
> 
> That's a use case for _top or _parent, not _blank.

Yes.  But also clicking on adverts can often be quite different from
clicking on other links in a site:

* Usually adverts are not the reason a user visits a site, so if she
  sees an advert that intrigues her then she is likely to be in the
  middle of doing something else, or has a pending task at the current
  site.  So it can be helpful for the advert to open elsewhere, then
  whether she looks at the advert first or finishes with the current
  site, t'other one will be there waiting for her.

* Links within a site generally lead to pages with navigation to
  elsewhere on the site, often including back to where a user has come
  from.

Many users are probably now used to it being 'safe' to click on an
advert without losing what they are currently doing.  If adverts started
using _top and overwriting what's in the current window that could be
confusing.

Smylers



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