Tutorial
Target Attribute Reference for Anchor Tags in HTML
While this tutorial has content that we believe is of great benefit to our community, we have not yet tested or edited it to ensure you have an error-free learning experience. It's on our list, and we're working on it! You can help us out by using the "report an issue" button at the bottom of the tutorial.
The target attribute inside anchor tags (<a>) tells the browser where the linked document should be loaded. It’s optional, and defaults to _self when no value is provided. It can take a browsing context name/keyword (e.g.: tab, window), or one of the following 4 keywords.
The concept of a browsing context was introduced with HTML5 and it refers to a window, tab or frame inside a page.
- _self: The default value. Loads the document in the same browsing context.
- _blank: The most commonly used value. Loads the document in a new browsing context (window or tab).
- _parent: Loads the document in the parent browsing context/frame if there’s one, or the same browsing context if there’s no parent.
- _top: Loads the document in the topmost browsing context/frame if there’s one, or the same browsing context if there’s no parent.
