target=”_blank” bad for SEO

Made a discovery today which could effect anybody who uses target=”_blank” when they haven’t got their URL’s configured right.

Here is an example,

http://www.uksmallbusinessdirectory.co.uk/business-listings.asp?strCompanyName=Wheelchair%20Ramps%20UK
Anyone reading this will see that the spaces between “Wheelchair Ramps UK” were left in the URL but the browser converts these so it reads “Wheelchair%20Ramps%20UK”
This page links to the above page where it says “See their main details below.” http://www.uksmallbusinessdirectory.co.uk/x-telephone.asp?CompanyID=18091

Nothing strange so far, the spaces are converted to &20 and http://www.uksmallbusinessdirectory.co.uk/business-listings.asp?strCompanyName=Wheelchair%20Ramps%20UK is indexed fine by google.

Now try looking at this page, http://www.uksmallbusinessdirectory.co.uk/y-telephone.asp?CompanyID=18091 again follow the link where it says “See their main details below.”  but when you get to the page look at the URL!

This time the spaces are left in the URL.

After a bit of testing I soon realised that the reason the spaces were not converted to %20 was because the link from the 2nd page was using target=”_blank”

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