A link that opens a new tab for no reason
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Rule · bucket: hybrid · severity: warning · detector: new-tab-link · since: v0.27.0
Section: Things to avoid
Group: States and interaction

Forbidden:
  `target="_blank"` on an ordinary link (another site, an article, a source) because it leads away from the site

Instead:
  The same tab. Open a new tab only when leaving would lose something: the reader is in the middle of a task (a half-filled form, an unsaved edit, a checkout, a signed-in session), something is playing or running, or the link is a file read alongside the page, such as a PDF. When a link does open a new tab, say so: "(opens in a new tab)" in its accessible name, and an icon for sighted readers. Open it safely too (`K-128`).

The reader can already open any link in a new tab, with Cmd or Ctrl-click or a long-press. Forcing it takes that choice away and breaks Back: the new tab has no history, and on a phone the page they came from is hidden among their other tabs. A tab that opens unannounced is also a change of context nobody asked for, and a screen reader user may not know they have left.
`jig check` warns on a link that opens a new tab and never says so. Whether the reason is good, a task the reader would lose, is a judgment a `critique` makes on the page.