76
External Links in New Window / New Tab
It fixes your links but fills your dashboard with noise.
HealthyGrowing
76/100
It performs its core task well. Persistent dashboard ads and dishonest update notes cause significant frustration.
Active installs
~35,000
our estimate · wp.org shows 30k+
Rating
4.5★
77 ratings
Trend · vs a year ago
+49%
Growing fast
34 → 51 installs/day
Downloads over time
real new installs per day · release spikes shown separately from the trend2025-04-302025-08-082025-11-162026-02-232026-06-03
organicrelease spikerelease tailorganic trend · 14d rolling median
Growing fast · +49% in the last year
34/day a year ago→51/day today
Reviews
what people actually sayExternal Links in New Window / New Tab is a well-regarded, lightweight plugin that reliably opens external links in new tabs with minimal setup, but it has a notable history of aggressive in-dashboard advertising for other plugins and paid upgrades.
What people like
- +Works out of the box with little to no configuration required×6
- +Supports inclusion/exclusion rules for fine-grained control over which links are affected×2
- +Solves the extra steps introduced in WordPress 6.3 for setting links to open in a new tab
- +Responsive author support when issues arise×2
Common complaints
- −Plugin spams the WordPress dashboard with persistent discount and upsell notifications that cannot be permanently dismissed×3
- −A plugin update was used solely to inject an ad for another plugin, with the changelog dishonestly describing it as 'minor changes'
- −Does not work with Google Ads
Review trustMostly organic
- 4.53★Verified rating — holds steady vs the raw 4.50★
- 9%One-shot reviewers — most reviewers are active community members
- past spikeReview timing — up to 29% of all reviews landed in a single month
Reviews per month · 5★ vs lower
2023-07-202025-01-102026-06-04
5★ reviews1–4★ reviews
All-time ratings · 77 total
Latest reviews · 77 analyzed
- 2025-10-30★★★★★Not workingedragonxx
- 2024-11-11★★★★★Works as expected, minimal setupChristian Saborio
- 2024-07-20★★★★★Simple, elegant plug-inphilsimon
- 2024-07-15★★★★★Work perfectboonpraserd
- 2024-02-14★★★★★Works perfectly!mhscodafweb
- 2023-09-02★★★★★This plug-in has fixed an ‘improvement' from WP 6.3mocha24
- 2023-07-18★★★★★A very useful and complete plugin. Nice Open source!peopleinside
- 2023-03-28★★★★★Funciona como esperabamabelmato
- 2022-12-18★★★★★Simple yet effectiveshibafoss
- 2022-10-26★★★★★Funziona perfettamentebigportal
Releases
recent versions from WordPress.org SVNFor developers & the curious
the raw signals behind the grade — none of this is on the friendly summary aboveDownload signals
Baselines are computed on organic days only — release spikes and their tails are excluded, so they're not inflated by the auto-update wave.
45
Baseline · median of last 7 organic days
53
Prior 7-day baseline
41
Floor · 25th percentile over 14 days
72
Mean release-day peak (30d)
38
Latest day · 2026-06-03(organic)
-15.1%
Week-over-week organic trend
Review signals
Concentration and drive-by metrics drive the review-burst and fake-review flags. 30–40% solo reviewers is normal; we only flag the extremes.
29%
Max month share · biggest single 30-day window
2.37
Distribution CV · <0.6 even, >1.5 bursty
87%
5★ share in analyzed sample
9%
Solo reviewers · only this one wp.org activity
—
Volume velocity · last 6mo vs prior 6mo
4.52 → 4.53★
Sample avg · raw → solo-filtered