Reader regression — links open in new tab instead of staying in Reader
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Subject: Reader regression — blog links now open in new browser tab instead of staying in Reader
Hi,
I’m writing to report a behaviour change in the WordPress.com Reader that appeared today (18 June 2026) and is significantly degrading my workflow.
Previously, when reviewing like/comment notifications in the Reader, clicking a link to another blog would open that blog within the Reader interface (in-window). As of today, those same links are spawning a new browser tab and opening the external blog site directly in the browser, bypassing the Reader entirely.
This is a major regression for anyone who works through notifications in the Reader, as it breaks the in-app flow and forces constant tab management.
Expected behaviour: clicking a blog link from a like/comment notification in the Reader should open the linked blog within the Reader, as before.
Actual behaviour (as of today): the link opens in a new browser tab, leaving the Reader.
Please reinstate the previous behaviour. This appears to be an unintentional change rather than a deliberate redesign.
Thank you.
The blog I need help with is: (visible only to logged in users)
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Hi Stephen,Thank you for the detailed report.I can understand how disruptive that would be, especially if you’re regularly working through notifications in the Reader and relying on the ability to move between sites without leaving the Reader experience.I haven’t seen any recent announcements regarding an intentional change to this behavior, so I’d like to gather a bit more information to help determine whether this is a bug, an experiment, or a browser-specific issue.Could you please let us know:- Which browser and version you’re using?- Whether the same behavior occurs in an incognito/private browsing window?- Whether it happens for all Reader notifications or only specific types (Likes, Comments, Follows, etc.)?- If possible, could you share a short screen recording showing the workflow and the new-tab behavior?Additionally, if you haven’t already, please try clearing your browser cache and temporarily disabling any extensions that might affect link handling to see whether the behavior persists.If we can confirm that this represents a change from the previous Reader experience and reproduce it consistently, we’ll be able to pass the details along to the appropriate team for further investigation.Thanks for taking the time to report this and for providing such a clear description of the issue.
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This appears to be part of a newly rolled out design change of the notifications area in Reader, e.g.
– font / white space layout changes in the notification items
– change in position and style of Like button, comment-reply box etc (these are now at the bottom of the screen rather than in-context in the item itself
– etcThe change in link behaviour is therefore obviously part of a larger UI re-design and likely a deliberate design choice rather than being some transient browser-specific/cache issue
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Just to recap on the impact of the change:
Workflow now:
- iterate items in Notifications
- for each new Comment, Like, click on the blog link
- this NOW opens original site (NOT the Reader view of the site) in a separate tab
- switch view in browser to new tab
- mouse over to bottom WP menu (IF PRESENT)
- click to open site / post in Reader (still now in the separate tab)
- if it landed on a post, then click on site link to get to view of all recent posts for the blog in Reader
Previously:
- iterate items in Notifications
- click on blog link to open the site in Reader view in the the current context of Reader
Why are you making it much harder to accomplish a simple flow that previously JUST WORKED?
The new changes in behaviour are putting a lot of unnecessary obstacles in the way of a simple flow. Have your UX team really properly thought through the impact their newly created barriers will have on cross-blog engagement?
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Yay! You have rolled back to previous Reader experience 🎉
Please tell you are going to keep it that way.
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REALLY!!!!?????
So, after reverting to the old sensible Reader behaviour, it appears today that you have rolled out yet another productivity killing change
The look of the Notifications area in Reader has remained the same this time, but you have again changed the link behaviour — links to other folks’ blogs in the Notification items yet again now open in a new tab direct to their (non-Reader) site…WordPress, wordpress, wordpress — what are you playing at?
If you really must include a direct link to the blogs, at least ALSO provide a simple, one-click way of opening those blogs in-context in the Reader view.
All you are achieving with these ill-thought out changes to Reader — which honestly only appear to be changes for the sake of changes — is to alienate your existing loyal user base and place completely unnecessary barriers in the way of cross-blog engagement in the WP ecosystem. -
Hello? Is there anybody out there?
I would really appreciate it if anyone could actually respond to this thread and explain why WP is constantly fiddling with this (and not in a good way). The behaviour of blog links in the Reader notifications seems to be endlessly flip flopping. One day it is fine, with the legacy behaviour of opening in-context in Reader; the next it has reverted to the new, productivity-killing behaviour.
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