Open in New Page/Stay on Same Browser?

[FictionNet]

I've been considering this issue myself quite a bit lately. This thread has been an important part of that consideration and I'd like to thank everyone for their input - it's been very helpful.

Since my first site back in 1999, I've always gone with the 'tradition' of external=new/internal=top. I'm changing that now. As I'm updating sites and pages, I'm gradually changing links over to same window. It'll be a long process so I'll have time to monitor things as I go. My reasoning has been that I want to increase conversions. I fully accept the branding-based need to keep the visitor on my site but the main aim is to convert via the merchant and I think same window may help. Let's see.

[mattsgame]

I have always had my Internal links open in a new window and External in a new window.

Nothing worse than being on a site and clicking links to look at something on the same site and new window pops up, it gets messy.. (I did try this on my sites and it looked horrible, even I would be turned away from my own site)

But as for external I find this keeps people on my sites longer and after clicking one casino they will come back to my page on the other tab and click another one etc, and they do not have to lose the connection to my site/s.

[Buddy M]

I have always had my Internal links open in a new window and External in a new window.

Nothing worse than being on a site and clicking links to look at something on the same site and new window pops up, it gets messy.. (I did try this on my sites ad it looked horrible, even I would be turned away form my own site)

But as for external I find this keeps people on my sites longer and after clicking one casino they will come back to my page on the other tab and click another one etc, and they do not have to lose the connection to my site/s.

That is the way I have been doing it as well.

[xecutable]

Well it's been 12 days since I have written and I have decided to share the results for now. In the most recent videos, of the visitors' mouse movements and clicks, all of the distraction is gone.

You can now clearly see when a certain user is having trouble following the material, and it's dead easy to make changes.

My top two programs, increased conversion with 42.7% which I consider good enough, as January to me at least seems like a slow month.

I will keep on analyzing, to a certain extent as I do not want to get fanatic on this subject but rather share my results. From the look of it for now, I doubt I will ever go back to outgoing -> new window.

As for the results, I believe that they will get even better with time and a bit more optimization. And as Rick said of course, the moon phase and now all of that snow. I mean there's no evidence that the moon phase and snow don't affect conversion (taken from the Thanksgiving South Park episode)

[universal4]

Thanks for keeping us updated X....I have really been looking forward to hearing your results.....

I thought about instituting this on one of my sites, but the way the moon phase has been....it would probably snow in Florida if I timed it incorrectly....

Rick
Universal4

[xecutable]

Thanks for keeping us updated X....I have really been looking forward to hearing your results.....

I thought about instituting this on one of my sites, but the way the moon phase has been....it would probably snow in Florida if I timed it incorrectly....

Rick
Universal4

Our snow has almost melted away and the forecast says rain on Sunday, so pretty much out of the way . All kidding aside I believe that it's worth analyzing your visitors in every possible way and testing either partially or fully with this and many other things we usually take for granted or by default.

Like for example I usually assume that everyone uses FF and views on 1680x1050, and one day I was glancing around on Chrome and the notebook on resolution much smaller and I found out some div tags were overlapping and stuff. I believe every little bit helps improving the user experience. The only thing I've left on external window r some excel files that I have created and contain calculators for various bets.

[xYassassinYx]

Thanks for the update Executable!

I have my external links open in the same window and find it more effective too.

I make banners open in a new window though but maybe i will experiment with that when traffic grows and i have a larger sample size.