Well the phrase “that might be a reason to use it” does rather suggest that you’re advocating using it, yes. 
The technique - and reasons against - had already been covered in the thread, so raising it again also suggested you were advocating its use.
As Ryan says, best not to confuse matters.
Point taken, I suppose.
~TehYoyo
I don’t tend to use the target attribute considering it is deprecated in HTML4 but I will apply a class like “popup” to links and handle them with JavaScript opening the URL in a new window. People tend to request that type of functionality when linking to an external site. I think it can be useful considering most average users do not know nor wan to be bothered with manually creating a new window. Of course it should be done in moderation like anything. To much of it will probably annoy people.
I think in your case opening up the third party site(s) in a different window is perfectly acceptable. Using the target attribute wouldn’t be my first choice but if you using a doctype that supports it than it is much easier than the method I use when dealing with HTML4. I don’t see it hurting anything.
My understanding of Barnum’s OP is that he wanted to ensure the back button does work, so opening a link in a new window is the opposite of what he wants. Either way, he has solved his problem, which was, after all, the main purpose of the thread.
Mein gott… PEOPLE… You’re kidding me…
First, the OP has outdated markup circa the late '90s… ok, not a big deal… but then the first thing people suggest is the deprecated TARGET attribute which has no business being used on websites in the first place, AND as technobear pointed out does the exact opposite of what the OP is asking for?!?
People are DUMBER for having read this thread so far.
There is nothing in your code that would prevent a user from having a back button after visiting that link. If something IS blocking the back button, I would suspect it’s the page being targeted and nothing you are doing… though we’d have to see the actual page in question to say for sure. Without seeing the complete code of your site it’s hard to weigh in properly. Local testing here I can find nothing in at “whites metal detectors” that would cause the problem either.
That said, CENTER, ALIGN, BORDER and a good number of the other elements in your tiny little code snippet have no business being on websites written after sometime around 2001, when we kicked Netscape 4 to the curb the way people are kicking IE6 to the curb now. This indicates old/outdated code that may mean it’s time to pitch your site and start over.
Particularly if oddball problems are cropping up like the one you describe… may not be the actual problem, they are just indicators of deeper rooted issues with your site.
Yep, my problem was solved THANK YOU ALL…
Barnum… if the explanations have gone over your head… here is a simplified version:
you have two flavour of links in your code. the bottom one differs from the top as highlighted:
<a href=“http://www.whitesdetectors.com” target=“_blank”>
TARGET_BLANK opens the link in a blank window as such it does have a BROWSING HISTORY so you cant use the back keys ( or even a LINK with :javascript:history.back(1)) to navigate where you APPEAR to have come from) .
Think of it this way: hit “CONTROL-N”, this should open a new window/tab in your browser and you would be looking at your default home page… but note also you have no BACK button in that tab yet. This is similar to what you get by using target=“_blank”.
I have grossly oversimplified this response, but hopefully it helps you with your endeavor.