On Thu, 22 Sep 2005 10:08:22 -0700, nb8nc6 sent:

> I received an odd request from my manager recently. He wants to know if
> we can warn users who click links that lead to external sites that they
> are leaving our site. I am arguing against this on several grounds, but
> want to understand all the technical possibilies. I inherited the site
> and it is 90% static HTML with some PHP and Perl applications.

Surely it'd be too late to "warn" someone as they were "leaving"? If it
were even possible, for which I'm guessing client-side JavaScript would be
the only way of doing that.

The only sensible I can think of doing is to make sure that all of your
external links are *clearly* *labeled* as such.

e.g. We service <a href="http://.......">Panasonic</a> [external link]
television sets.

If you don't like that idea, then about the next best solution is to
*title* the link in a similar way:

e.g. We service <a href="http://......." title="[external link to
Panasonic's website]">Panasonic</a> television sets.

That lets those who care about where they're about to go with a link to
find out, in a way that they usually use to check links (hovering over
them without clicking), but doesn't add extra text to the page.

Scripting isn't going to work for all people, and nagging them not to
leave with requesters is going to annoy them. Don't be tempted to make
external links open up in new windows, that has it's own problems.
Amongst them, it annoys people who don't want yet another window open, and
can cause problems for low spec PCs which already have too many windows
open.

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