by WordPress Performance Team 5 (18 reviews)

Speculative Loading

Name: Speculative Loading
Rating: 5.0 (18 reviews)
Author: WordPress Performance Team

Enables browsers to speculatively prerender or prefetch pages to achieve near-instant loads based on user interaction.

Speculative Loading ranks #609 among WordPress.org plugins with 70,000+ active installations, is #86 of 4,499 in the Security category, a 5/5 rating from 18 reviews, and was last updated Aug 26, 2026. Data from WordPress.org, refreshed twice daily — see methodology.

Compatible with WP 7.1

v1.7.0 Current Version v1.7.0

Updated 3 weeks ago Last Update on 26 Aug, 2026

Refreshed 12 hours ago Last Refreshed on

#86 of 4,499 in Security Top 1% by installs Downloads -44.1% this week Actively maintained

View on WordPress.org

Rank

#609

— No change

Active Installs

70K+

-4.5%

KW Avg Position

8.2

0.2 worse

Downloads

405.5K

+1 today

Support Resolved

100%

— No change

Rating

100%

Review 5 out of 5

5 (18 reviews)

Next Milestone 80K

Total Progress 14%

70K+ 80K+

Ranks to Climb

Growth Needed

8,000,000

Active Installs

Pro

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Rank Changes

Current #609

Change

Best #

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Active Installs Growth

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Active Installs 0,000,000+

Growth +0.0%

Peak 0,000,000

Downloads Growth

Downloads

Growth

Peak

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Reviews & Ratings

5.0

18 reviews

Overall 100%

18 (100%)

0 (0%)

Support Threads Overview

Resolved

Unresolved

Total Threads

Resolved

Unresolved

100%

Resolution Rate

Security History

Source: WPVulnerability

No known vulnerabilities on record for Speculative Loading. Checked 1 week ago.

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Plugin Details

Version: 1.7.0
Last Updated: Aug 26, 2026
Requires WP: 6.9+
Tested Up To: 7.1
PHP Version: 7.4 or higher
Author: WordPress Performance Team

Support & Rating

Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ 5
Reviews: 18
Support Threads: 1
Resolved: 100%

Keywords

javascript performance prefetch prerender speculation rules

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TL;DR

AI summary of the plugin's readme

This plugin is for WordPress site owners who want faster page loads for logged-out visitors browsing their site. It adds a user interface for the Speculation Rules API, enabling prerendering or prefetching of pages based on user interaction so that clicked links load nearly instantly.

Prerendering with moderate eagerness
Settings UI in Reading screen
Enabled for logged-out users by default
Opt-in for logged-in users
Opt-in for administrators only
Filter to exclude URL paths
no-prerender CSS class support
Chromium browser support

Frequently Asked Questions

Common questions about Speculative Loading

Not every URL can be reasonably prerendered. Prerendering static content is typically reliable, however prerendering interactive content, such as a logout URL, can lead to issues. For this reason, certain WordPress core URLs such as /wp-login.php and /wp-admin/* are excluded from prefetching and prerendering. Additionally, any URLs generated with wp_nonce_url() (or which contains the _wpnonce query var) and nofollow links are also ignored. You can exclude additional URL patterns by using the plsr_speculation_rules_href_exclude_paths filter. The following example ensures that URLs like https://example.com/cart/ or https://example.com/cart/foo are excluded from prefetching and prerendering: <?php add_filter( 'plsr_speculation_rules_href_exclude_paths', function ( array $exclude_paths ): array { $exclude_paths[] = '/cart/*'; return $exclude_paths; } ); Keep in mind that sometimes it may be useful to exclude a URL from prerendering while still allowing it to be prefetched. For example, a page with client-side JavaScript to update user state should probably not be prerendered, but it would be reasonable to prefetch. For this purpose, the plsr_speculation_rules_href_exclude_paths filter receives the current mode (either "prefetch" or "prerender") to provide conditional exclusions. The following example ensures that URLs like https://example.com/products/... cannot be prerendered, while still allowing them to be prefetched: <?php add_filter( 'plsr_speculation_rules_href_exclude_paths', function ( array $exclude_paths, string $mode ): array { if ( 'prerender' === $mode ) { $exclude_paths[] = '/products/*'; } return $exclude_paths; }, 10, 2 ); As mentioned above, adding the no-prerender CSS class to a link will prevent it from being prerendered (but not prefetched). Additionally, links with rel=nofollow will neither be prefetched nor prerendered because some plugins add this to non-idempotent links (e.g. add to cart); such links ideally should rather be buttons which trigger a POST request or at least they should use wp_nonce_url().

For safety reasons, the entire speculative loading feature is disabled by default for logged-in users and for sites that do not use pretty permalinks. The latter is the case because plugins often use URLs with custom query parameters to let users perform actions, and such URLs should not be speculatively loaded. For sites without pretty permalinks, it is impossible or at least extremely complex to differentiate between which query parameters are Core defaults and which query parameters are custom. If you are running this plugin on a site without pretty permalinks and are confident that there are no custom query parameters in use that can cause state changes, you can opt in to enabling speculative loading via the plsr_enabled_without_pretty_permalinks filter: <?php add_filter( 'plsr_enabled_without_pretty_permalinks', '__return_true' );

Prerendering can affect analytics and personalization. For client-side JavaScript, is recommended to delay these until the prerender is activated (for example by clicking on the link). Some solutions (like Google Analytics) already do this automatically, see Impact on Analytics. Additionally, cross-origin iframes are not loaded until activation which can further avoid issues here. Speculating with the default moderate eagerness decreases the risk that the prerendered page will not be visited by the user and therefore will avoid any side effects of loading such a link in advance. In contrast, eager speculation increases the risk that prerendered pages may not be loaded. Alternatively, the plugin offers to only speculate on mouse/pointer down (conservative) which reduces the risk even further and is an option for sites which are concerned about this, at the cost of having less of a lead time and so less of a performance gain. A prerendered page is linked to the page that prerenders it, so personalisation may already be known by this point and changes (e.g. browsing other products, or logging in/out) often require a new page load, and hence a new prerender, which will then take these into account. But it definitely is something to be aware of and test! Prerendered pages can be canceled by removing the speculation rules <script> element from the page using standard JavaScript DOM APIs should this be needed when state changes without a new page load.

Feedback is encouraged and much appreciated, especially since this plugin may contain future WordPress core features. If you have suggestions or requests for new features, you can submit them as an issue in the WordPress Performance Team's GitHub repository. If you need help with troubleshooting or have a question about the plugin, please create a new topic on our support forum.

The Performance team and WordPress community take security bugs seriously. We appreciate your efforts to responsibly disclose your findings, and will make every effort to acknowledge your contributions. To report a security issue, please visit the WordPress HackerOne program.

Contributions are always welcome! Learn more about how to get involved in the Core Performance Team Handbook.