// Tutorial //
Target Attribute Reference for Anchor Tags in HTML
By Alligator.io
While we believe that this content benefits our community, we have not yet thoroughly reviewed it. If you have any suggestions for improvements, please let us know by clicking 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.
Thanks for learning with the DigitalOcean Community. Check out our offerings for compute, storage, networking, and managed databases.
author
This textbox defaults to using Markdown to format your answer.
You can type !ref in this text area to quickly search our full set of tutorials, documentation & marketplace offerings and insert the link!
Hollie's Hub for Good
Working on improving health and education, reducing inequality, and spurring economic growth? We’d like to help.
Get started for free
Enter your email to get $200 in credit for your first 60 days with DigitalOcean.
New accounts only. By submitting your email you agree to our Privacy Policy.
