Do you visually indicate when a link is external?

When creating links, you should follow a few basic rules:

If your link is an internal link, then it should keep the default behaviour, navigating within the same tab
If the link is external, it should:
- Open in a new tab
- Be visually clear to the user that it will lead them away from the current site, that way it is not a surprise.

Google is by far the best but try other search engines as well.

Figure: Bad example - Without visual indication

Google is by far the best but try other search engines as well.

Figure: Good example - With visual indication

How to add the external link indicator?

It should be inserted by CSS as following:

a[href*=&quot;//&quot;]&#58;not([href*=&quot;mysite.com&quot;]):after {
content&#58; url(https://www.ssw.com.au/ssw/images/external.gif);     
padding-left: 4px;
}