Speculative loading is going to be included in the WordPress core in the next version, 6.8, which will be available for installation on our WP sites on 15 April, according to an announcement.
Currently, this plugin is at version 1.4 and has been tested on 50,000 WordPress sites, enough to warrant its inclusion in the core. For now, it has received five-star ratings.
In its current configuration, you can choose to either preload the page or pre-read it (though preloading is generally the most common approach) and then decide how “eager” the system should be in carrying out this action. First, the system will preload the page at the slightest hint that the user might visit it; second, there is a more typical option, which is to preload the page when the user hovers over a link; and lastly, the most conservative option is to wait until the user actually clicks on the link before loading the page.
In short, depending on the chosen configuration, this extension attempts to predict the user’s navigation in order to preload that page and thus serve it to the user at extremely high speed. Obviously, this may affect the hosting by creating extra load, but on the other hand it improves loading times and core web vitals for many sites, which is never a bad thing.
The speculation rules API is compatible with Chrome, Edge, and Opera (all Chromium-based browsers) so far, meaning that a large share of the market can benefit if it’s installed. The rest of the browsers will simply ignore it.”
* Original article written in Spanish, translated with chatGPT and reviewed in English by Jorge Mediavilla.
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