How to open Affiliate HTML Ads in New Tabs

Open in New Tab

One of the most important things you can do for your website is to ensure that your visitors stay [on your site] as long as possible. In many cases, this not only means providing them with relevant/up to date content as well as internal links to other pages of interest, it means forcing links they might click to open in a new tab rather than whisking them away to someone else's site, leaving them no easy avenue of return. Can you do this? In most cases, YES! Should you do this? Well, that depends on the Affiliate Agreement or Terms of Service (TOS) you accepted when you signed up.

Things You'll Need:
* Administrative/Webmaster control of a website
* Affiliate advertising programs

1. Edit Hyperlinks to open in a new tab by selecting that option when you enter the link address in your website's editor. This usually means checking the applicable box in the dialog window. Most of these text-type links will not have restrictions under an affiliate agreement. But, check first to avoid violating TOS. Do this for all out-bound links, to increase time-on-page duration.

Target="_Blank"

2. Open HTML coded links in a new tab by editing the link text itself. To do this, you must enter the parameter (highlighted in red) target="_blank" in the href section just before the image code. These ad images are actually hosted on your affiliate's server.

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3. Copy/paste the edited link text into an HTML script window, properly sized so that the ad appears in whole without the viewer having to scroll the window side to side.

4. In some cases, with your affiliate's assistance, you can place an ad image on your site and link it to open in a new tab. This link-code must include your personal affiliate identification in order for you to receive credit for referrals and/or sales. Without your coded identification, the "ad" amounts to nothing more than an outbound link (a backlink).

Tips:
* Most but not all Amazon Affiliate links come pre-coded to open in a new tab. Look for =_blank in the HTML code. (Note the slight difference)

Warnings:
* Attempting to edit links with no easily discernible image link code will often lead to invalid  or corrupted links which only serve to damage your website's credibility.
* This is not possible with the InfoLinks Affiliate program.
* This edit is not possible in Google adSense javascript coded links. Attempting to run them through a third-party program which forces them to open in a new tab is, unfortunately, a violation of Google's TOS and will ultimately lead to permanent revocation of your adSense account.

Copyright 10/31/2012 All rights reserved. Questions? Comments? Contact Me
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