The HTML Target Attribute for Anchors

The Anchor tag attribute for target tells the web browser where to open the link. There are 4 defined target presets which come in handy for many web designers of all levels. They are _blank, _self, _parent, and _top. You can also specify a descriptive name with the underscore( _ ).

• _blank will open a new browser window with no name.
• _self will replace the current html page, so if it is in a frame or frameset it will load within that frame. If it is the full browser, it will open to replace the page in the full browser.
• _parent will replace the html page it came from.
• _top will load in the current browser by replacing anything within the browser such as a frameset.

A descriptive name is used when

• you want to use a named frame as your target, setting the frame name in the frameset you want it to load into.
• you want for example say all your outside links to open in the same window, name the target as one.
• you have popup windows that are for example larger images from a thumbnail and you want them to always open in the same window, name the target all the same.

• Click here to load this page on top of itself (_top).
• Click here to load a new, unnamed window (_blank)
• Click here to load a window in the iframe on the right where the name if the iframe is "myiframe"

<a target="_blank" href="mypage.html">your link text here</a>