Everybody wants to make WordPress run faster, but nobody wants to mess with code.
Eric Shefferman
Something recently made me remember to look at the instant.page website to see that it was still there and check if there’s anything new.
As I recall, to use the script I linked to the exact script that was hosted — which included the version number of script. It’s now up to something in the 3’s and when I found it it was version 1.
Hotlinking to a script that keeps updating the version number seems like an easily-forgotten under-the-hood kind of detail. Fortunately, instant.page now has a WordPress plugin version which (I hope) will update itself along with all my other WordPress plugins (which I keep updated with Easy Updates Manager, but that’s another article).
So… back to instant.page, here’s the link to the WordPress plugin version:
So that’s what I’m using now. If you feel my site is snappy fast, that’s some part of it. Possibly.
Also – while looking to install the plugin, I came across ANOTHER plugin that does something similar – Flying Pages.
I found this discussion about Flying Pages very interesting — apparently the idea seems to come from a google thing called Quicklink? and that there are other implementation philosophies, hence the need for Flying Pages. I suggest that you read this article to decide what resonates with you.
My quick takes on the article are:
- you don’t want the page preload software to suck down too many pages from your website at once or it can overwhelm it
- deciding what links to preload is an issue — links the mouse is hovering over, links that show on screen, or links that are being injected into the code (and/or all the combos of the above)
https://wpspeedmatters.com/quicklink-vs-instant-page-vs-flying-pages/
Personally, I like the idea of preloading on mouseover the way instant.page does since to me that seems to be the least wasteful of bandwidth and server usage.
For now, this site is still using instant.page, but using it via the WordPress plugin so that it’s easier to set it and forget it.