Note: The code in this article was updated and tested to work as of 2015-09-01.
If you run a WordPress-powered website, ask yourself, how many users leave your site by following the links left by commenters? The answer will no doubt vary greatly site to site, but if your users are leaving your site prematurely and forgetting to come back, then you need to improve that situation straightaway.
And it’s easy to do! What we’ll do is add a small snippet of code to your site which will alter the links to instead open in a new tab (or window, if tabs are unavailable), ensuring your site remains open in the user’s browser. Links which point to the current site’s address (as determined by home_url() will not open a new tab).