[UKSBD]

I made a discovery today that might effect anyone who uses
target="_blank" if you haven't got your URL's configured right.

Too much to re-write here, anyone interested have a read on
my blog, target=”_blank” bad for SEO

[RawRob]

Must be browser specific, cos the spaces are converted to %20 correctly on both Firefox 2 and IE 6. So I don't think it will affect SEO at all (Googlebot probably ignores stuff like target="_blank").

Rob

[UKSBD]

Testing from here (as this forum uses target="_blank" too)

test

[OldWelshGuy]

This is just hexidecimal stuf % is the prefix and 20 is the code for space. it really isn't an issue for SEO.

[UKSBD]

Originally Posted by RawRob

Must be browser specific, cos the spaces are converted to %20 correctly on both Firefox 2 and IE 6. So I don't think it will affect SEO at all (Googlebot probably ignores stuff like target="_blank").

Rob

What do you see when clicking the test link above?

[UKSBD]

Originally Posted by OldWelshGuy

This is just hexidecimal stuf % is the prefix and 20 is the code for space. it really isn't an issue for SEO.

Re-read the blog, it might not be explained very clearly

[OldWelshGuy]

Ok will re-read it

[openmind]

As a side note, target="_blank" is an invalid attribute for XHTML so the easy thing to do is just a search and replace on your site and replace it with this:

<a href="http://www.openmindhosting.co.uk" title="Open Mind Hosting" onclick="return ! window.open(this.href);">Open Mind Hosting</a>

[RawRob]

Originally Posted by UKSBD

What do you see when clicking the test link above?

When I hover my mouse over the link, the status bar shows it with spaces, when I click, the link in the address bar has %20.

Rob

[UKSBD]

I would be interested to here what other people see,

Click this link

Do spaces show in the URL or not?