the use of click on pop-ups; good or bad?

[ATK]

Apologies if this topic is covered elsewhere; I have searched for it but to no avail.

What I’m trying to find out is if pop-ups (in this case, a button would be clicked on which opens up in a separate smaller window so you can still view the page behind, rather than on the original explorer window) are search-engine friendly or not and any pros and cons on using pop-ups (for example lots of browsers now use pop-up blockers which is a major consideration).

I’m proposing to have our full sitemap accessible via a clicked on pop-up in order to help client site navigation and to help google trawl our pages. This would be beneficial to us as clients could still view the original web-page whilst accessing other potentially relevant content. However if google can’t look at pop-up’s there would be no point in having the sitemap set up in this way.

Thanks in advance!

[dharrison]

My link coverage on Google (link:www.yoursite.com) increased dramatically when I removed the target="_blank" attribute from my hyperlinks.

Keep it simple then you don't alienate your customers.

HTH

[sysop9999]

I only use the "_blank" whenever I link out of the house.

If the content is on my site, there's no point in opening a new window for that - just make a "<- back" button on the new page so peeps easily can navigate back from where they came

[mccreath]

As far as I can tell popup blockers do not block that type of "popup". They concentrate on javascript that opens another window as soon as a window has been loaded. Not the ones that a user requests by clicking on a button or link.

Saying that. As previously stated, keep it simple to reduce the chances that it does not get followed.

I only use 'target' (or javascript popups) on links I don't want or care if they are followed. Such as shopping cart stuff, user based administration or links to external websites. Same goes for frames!

I've noticed, opening too many windows can annoy/confuse a user!

Regarding using a popup for the site map. I would try it and see. I'm sure it will get indexed. Not sure how you would manage a sitemap on a seperate window though without causing window hell for the user?

[DrTandem1]

This is still a widely debated topic in design. I tend to agree with no new window for links that point elsewhere in the same site, except for click-on pop-up windows for instructions or an image enlargement. For links to other sites, I lean towards a new window. The reason being that I myself have followed links from one site to another and have forgotten which site was the original site from where I started.

HTML 4.0 strict and XHTML 1.0 strict don't have a target attribute for the <a> tag. So, it's a non-issue there.

With regards to a site map, I think it would add to the confusion to have new windows opening for the same site. I think it would be better to not do that and simply put a link to the site map on every page.