Should You Add Speculative API Rules to Your Small Business Website?

If you’ve got a small business website, chances are you want it to be fast and smooth, right? No one likes a slow site, especially not visitors who are ready to buy something or get in touch. One new-ish tool that might help is the Speculation Rules API. Sounds fancy, but it’s basically a way to guess where someone might click next on your site—and get that page ready before they even do it.

What is the Speculation Rules API?

The Speculation Rules API is a tool for modern browsers (mainly Chrome for now) that lets websites preload or even prerender other pages based on what a user is likely to do. Imagine someone’s on your homepage, and there’s a big shiny “Shop Now” button. The browser can quietly start loading the shop page in the background. So, if the person clicks it, boom—it loads almost instantly.

What’s the Difference Between Preloading and Prerendering?

Good question! Preloading grabs the info ahead of time, like downloading an image before it’s on screen. Prerendering goes a step further—it builds the full page in a hidden tab. When the user actually goes there, the page is ready to show instantly.

How Does It Work?

You add a bit of code (in JSON format) to your site that tells the browser what pages might be needed next. This is called a speculation rule. Here’s a basic example:

<script type="speculationrules">
{
  "prerender": [
    {
      "source": "list",
      "urls": ["/shop", "/contact"]
    }
  ]
}
</script>

This little script tells the browser: “Hey, maybe the user’s gonna click on /shop or /contact. Let’s get them ready just in case.”

Another example is:

<script type=”speculationrules”>
{
“prerender”: [{
“where”: {
“and”: [
{ “href_matches”: “/*” },
{ “not”: {“selector_matches”: “.do-not-prerender”}}
]
},
“eagerness”: “moderate”
}]
}
</script>

This second example tells the browser to “pre load” any page where the user hovers over the link to the page for more than 200ms (0.2 seconds).  Unless a CSS selector is set to “do-not-prerender” – which is a little technical for many small website owners.

Benefits of Using the Speculation Rules API

1. Speedy Page Loads

Let’s be honest—nobody likes waiting. If a user clicks something and the next page pops up right away, they’re more likely to stick around. It makes your site feel slick and modern.

2. Better Conversions

Faster pages can mean more sales, bookings or sign-ups. People don’t have time to waste, so every second counts. If your checkout or contact page loads instantly, that’s one less excuse to bounce.

3. Improved User Experience

It just feels nicer. Smooth navigation shows you care about your visitors and their time. And a good experience is one people are more likely to come back to.

4. Easy to Set Up

You don’t need to be a coding wizard to add speculation rules. It’s just a small script in your HTML. You decide which pages matter most and set them up.

5. Works with Existing Websites

You don’t have to rebuild your whole site. You can drop the speculation rules script into your existing pages, especially ones with clear next steps (like home to shop or blog to contact).

Drawbacks to Consider

1. Not All Browsers Support It

Right now, Chrome’s the main browser that supports prerendering with the Speculation Rules API. Others, like Firefox and Safari, might not use it—or might skip the rules entirely. That means not every visitor will get the speed boost.

2. It Uses More Data and Power

If a browser starts loading pages in the background and the user doesn’t click, it’s a bit of a waste. This can use up data (important for mobile users) and processing power, especially on slower devices.

3. Might Load Pages People Don’t Use

Let’s say you tell the browser to get ready for /contact, but no one clicks it. That’s effort down the drain. So you have to be smart about what you preload or prerender.

4. Can Make Debugging Harder

If something goes wrong on a prerendered page, it might be tricky to figure out why. Because the page was built before the user clicked, normal error messages might not show up in the same way.

5. Privacy Concerns

Some users or browsers might not like the idea of preloading or prerendering pages they haven’t actually visited. It could affect privacy, especially if tracking or analytics tools are involved. You’ll want to check your own privacy policy and maybe update it.

Tips for Using Speculation Rules the Right Way

1. Pick Key Pages

Don’t go wild and prerender your whole site. Choose pages people are most likely to visit next—like from your homepage to your shop or your blog post to your about page.  Or use the option to only pre-load on a hover.

2. Test Everything

After adding speculation rules, try out your site in Chrome and see what happens. Use tools like Chrome DevTools to check which pages are being prerendered and if anything breaks.

3. Keep an Eye on Analytics

Your stats might look different if pages are being prerendered. Some tools could count a visit even if the user never actually clicked. Make sure your tracking works properly or adjust it if needed.

4. Use with Other Speed Tricks

Don’t just rely on speculation rules. Combine them with image compression, lazy loading and a good host to keep things flying.

Who Should Use the Speculation Rules API?

It’s great for small businesses with fairly simple websites—especially shops, service providers, or bloggers. If you’ve got a clear user journey (like landing page ? product ? checkout), it can help loads. But if your site is super complex or heavy on dynamic content, it might not make a big difference.

How to Add It to Your Site

It’s dead simple. Here’s how:

1. Pick the pages you want to prerender (like “/shop” or “/contact”).
2. Add a <script type=”speculationrules”> block to your HTML.
3. Fill it with JSON listing those URLs.

Example:

<script type="speculationrules">
{
  "prerender": [
    {
      "source": "list",
      "urls": ["/shop", "/contact"]
    }
  ]
}
</script>

or you can use the second example above to load pages that the user hovers over.

Final Thoughts

The Speculation Rules API is one of those little tools that can give your website a big edge—especially if most of your visitors use Chrome. It won’t magically fix everything, but it can help your site feel faster and more polished. Just weigh up the pros and cons, test it properly, and keep an eye on how people use your site.

Like all tech stuff, it’s not one-size-fits-all. But if your site’s got a clear path for users to follow, and you want to make that journey smoother, it’s worth a try!