Re: Offsite link warning

> > Many organizations, especially government agencies, believe it's
> > important to make it clear to site visitors when they are leaving the
> > agency's site and going elsewhere. Reasons to alert the visitor include:
>
> So make it clear by two words, 'External Links.' No frames, no popups,
> nothing technical at all.
>

To me, this would be sufficient.  To a company's or agency's lawyer, it
might not be.

> > * the material they are about to view has not necessarily been vetted
> > through the same rigorous process as that used at the agency's site,
>
> So, don't link to it *until* it's been rigorised. Is that a word? If not
> then [tm]. :)
>

The problem is that you, of course, have no control over the data at a site
external to your own.  That does not mean that it is not useful information,
however.  Several times I have had reports from my own visitors that links
to formerly good pages now lead to 404's or worse, to sites that took over
(that's the polite way of saying "hijacked") a formerly good domain name and
is now hawking pots, or whatever.  If your site only links to pages within
your site, your site is a dead end.  No webmaster wants that.

As a technically minded person, I often preview where a link is going to
take me before I click on it with a quick glance on the status bar.
Obviously, I think the average surfer does not do this, or if they do, do
not understand it.

I find the "we are about to redirect you" pages to be a pain - but if they
are done right (i.e. with a link to go to the site immediately), they are
just a minor pain.  I agree that external pages within a frame, or popping
up a new window, are the worst of the options.  JS would be better, but not
much (the problem on non-JS or JS-turned-off browsers has been noted).

-------------------------------------------------------------
Steve Mount, Software Engineer            steve(at)saltyrain.com
Home Site                            http://www.saltyrain.com
US Constitution Online          http://www.usconstitution.net

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