How to Preload Links in WordPress for Faster Loading Speeds

At WPBeginner, we’ve dedicated years to mastering website speed. After exploring every major optimization, we started using a technique that delivered an immediate boost: link preloading.

If you’re frustrated by even the slightest delay in page loads, you know how much it can impact the user experience. Link preloading is a clever browser feature that gets the next page ready before your visitor even clicks the link.

The result is a website that feels incredibly snappy and almost instant. It’s a surprisingly simple way to give your site a noticeable performance boost that visitors will love.

In this guide, we’ll walk you through how to set it up correctly. Let’s get started.

What Is Link Preloading in WordPress?

Link preloading is when your web browser loads the link in the background before the user clicks it, making pages load faster when they visit.

It’s like the kitchen starting to cook your meal before you get to the restaurant!

In technical terms, link preloading is when a visitor’s web browser smartly loads the linked page in the background before they actually click on the link. So, when they do click, the page appears to load instantly. It’s all about making your website feel super snappy and responsive.

Now, why bother with all this? Well, a faster website is a happier website, in our experience. For starters, Google and other search engines love fast websites. It’s a big deal for SEO. A faster site potentially brings more traffic to your blog.

Plus, and maybe even more importantly, it makes your visitors happier. Nobody likes waiting around for pages to load, right? A smooth, quick website just feels better to use.

You can do many things to improve your WordPress speed and performance. This includes using a performance plugin or a CDN.

For example, a powerful caching plugin like WP Rocket can make a huge difference. However, link preloading is a unique technique that stands out for its simplicity.

The only thing is that it’s essential to configure preloading correctly to avoid server issues. Overly aggressive preloading of all internal links, for instance, could lead to server crashes.

That being said, let’s show you how to preload links in WordPress the right way, step by step. 

How to Preload WordPress Links and Make Your Site Faster

The easiest way to preload links is by using the Flying Pages plugin. It simply adds intelligent preloading to make sure preloading won’t crash your site or even slow it down.

If it detects any issues like that, then the plugin will stop all preloading. 

The first thing you need to do is install and activate the plugin. For more details, see our guide on how to install a WordPress plugin.

Upon activation, you need to navigate to Settings » Flying Pages in your WordPress admin panel to configure the plugin settings.

Then, you need to set the ‘Delay to start preloading’ time in the dropdown. This setting determines how long the plugin waits before it starts prefetching links.

It waits for a moment when the browser is idle (meaning it’s not busy loading your current page) to avoid slowing anything down. For most sites, the default ‘0 second’ setting, which starts prefetching as soon as the browser is free, works perfectly.

Next, you can change the ‘Max requests per second’. The lower you set this number, the less impact it will have on your server. 

We’ll keep the default setting of ‘3 requests’, which should work for most WordPress hosting environments.

After that, you can check the box to ‘Preload only on mouse hover.’ This will only preload links if a user hovers over it and will preload the page just before they click.

This makes the next page seem to load instantly. On average, there is about a 400-millisecond (ms) delay between the moment a user hovers their mouse over a link and when they actually click it. This brief window gives the browser a head start on fetching the next page.

You can also set the ‘Mouse hover delay.’ This is the time that will pass after a user hovers over a link before preloading starts. 

Below that, there’s a list of keywords that the plugin will ignore for preloading.

These are standard login pages and image files. You can leave the list as it is or add more keywords if you like.

If you are running an online store, then you may want to add pages like /cart and other dynamic pages in this list so they are not preloaded.

Similarly, if you are using an affiliate marketing plugin like ThirstyAffiliates or PrettyLinks, then it’s important to add your affiliate prefix like /refer/ or /go/ to this ignore keywords list. Otherwise, it can break affiliate link tracking.

The final option is to disable preloading for admins.

Overall, this will help to reduce your website server load. If you want to only preload for website visitors who aren’t logged-in admins, then simply check the box.

Once you are finished, click the ‘Save Changes’ button at the bottom of the page.

That’s it! You’ve successfully enabled link preloading on your website.

Frequently Asked Questions About Link Preloading

Here are some of the most common questions we get asked about preloading links in WordPress and how it affects website performance.

1. What is the main benefit of link preloading?

The main benefit is a much better user experience. When a visitor hovers over a link, the page begins loading in the background. This makes the next page appear to load almost instantly when they click, making your website feel faster and more responsive.

2. Will link preloading improve my Google PageSpeed score?

No, and this is an important point. Link preloading improves the perceived performance for actual users navigating your site. It does not affect the initial load time of a single page, which is what tools like PageSpeed Insights measure.

3. Can link preloading crash my server?

If done carelessly, aggressive prefetching can increase your server’s workload, especially on shared hosting. This is because every preload acts like a mini-visit to your server, and too many at once can overwhelm it.

However, the recommended Flying Pages plugin is designed to prevent this. It intelligently waits for the browser to be idle and only prefetches if your server isn’t busy, preventing crashes or slowdowns.

4. Are there any pages I should exclude from preloading?

Yes, you should always exclude dynamic pages. This includes cart, checkout, and account pages on an eCommerce site. It’s also important to exclude your affiliate links (like those with a /refer/ or /go/ prefix) to ensure your click tracking works correctly.

Get More Expert Tips to Speed Up WordPress

We hope this article helped you learn how to preload links in WordPress for faster loading speeds. You may also want to see some other tutorials on making your WordPress website faster:

• Fastest WordPress Hosting (With Performance Tests)
• Best WordPress Caching Plugins to Speed Up Your Website
• How to Minify CSS / JavaScript Files in WordPress
• How to Optimize Core Web Vitals for WordPress (Ultimate Guide)
• How to Easily Lazy Load Images in WordPress
• How to Speed Up Your eCommerce Website

If you liked this article, then please subscribe to our YouTube Channel for WordPress video tutorials. You can also find us on Twitter and Facebook.