Open every link in the same tab

[narthur]

The footer was the only place external links stayed in the same tab. Rather than make the footer match the rest of the site, this makes the rest of the site match the footer — following current best practice, which is to default to same-tab navigation regardless of whether the destination is external, and reach for target="_blank" only where it protects in-progress work (a form, an editor, a checkout).

This site has none of those. "It's external" was the only justification, and that isn't enough: a new tab takes control away from the reader, and anyone who wants one can middle-click.

What changed

target="_blank" and rel="noopener noreferrer" removed from every link in src/. Verified across the built output: 84 anchors, 74 of them external, none carrying target or rel.

rel="noreferrer" was not harmless

Worth calling out separately, because it was quietly costing something. Unlike noopener, noreferrer applies to same-tab navigation too — it suppresses the Referer header unconditionally. So every click through to Substack, Pine Peak Digital or Stack Overflow arrived with no referrer, and none of those could attribute the traffic to nathanarthur.com.

That's the opposite of useful given the open question of whether this site sends anyone anywhere. If a link ever does need a new tab, the rule is now rel="noopener" — never noreferrer — plus a visible cue in the label.

Falls out for free

Both isExternal helpers existed only to decide target, so both are deleted, along with the duplication between the copy in +page.svelte and the one in +layout.svelte.

Accessibility

A net improvement. Unexpected new-tab navigation without warning is a documented WCAG failure mode (SC 3.2.5), and there were no "opens in new tab" cues anywhere to make it safe. Removing the behaviour removes the problem rather than papering over it.

Notes

knowledge.md records the same-tab rule and what to do if an exception is ever needed. The repo's review learnings previously required target="_blank" on external links (a convention from PR #75) — that entry now records the reversal, so future reviews don't flag this as a regression.

Judgment call worth surfacing: the footer carries a newsletter email field on every page, which is technically "a form" under the best-practice exception. I didn't treat it as one — a single optional email input isn't in-progress work worth protecting, and the back button covers it.

pnpm lint, pnpm check, pnpm test and pnpm build all pass.

🤖 Generated with Claude Code

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📥 Commits

Reviewing files that changed from the base of the PR and between 1f17171 and 23a2185.

📒 Files selected for processing (6)

• knowledge.md
• src/routes/+layout.svelte
• src/routes/+page.svelte
• src/routes/audioverse/+page.svelte
• src/routes/uses/+page.svelte
• src/routes/writing/+page.svelte

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