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With Google’s Speculation Rules API, websites have gained new ways to predict user behavior and prefetch resources accordingly, potentially boosting site performance and user experience. But, once implemented, how can you tell if speculation rules are truly delivering the intended results? Here’s a guide to assess their effectiveness.
Understanding Speculation Rules and their purpose
Before diving into the metrics, let’s briefly recap what speculation rules are designed to do.
What are Speculation Rules?
Speculation rules are a feature that allows websites to anticipate what a user might do next and start loading the necessary content in advance. By observing user cues like link visibility, hovers, or even past actions, browsers can decide which pages to prefetch or prerender, helping make interactions feel much faster. Using the Speculation Rules API, developers can guide the browser on which elements to prioritize for preloading, ultimately creating a smoother, more responsive browsing experience.
Why use them?
The main advantage of speculation rules is improved speed. By speculative loading key content, sites can significantly cut down on wait times, making interactions feel instant. Imagine hovering over a link and then clicking it, only to find the next page loads immediately—that’s speculation rules at work. They reduce the time users spend waiting and help keep them engaged, which means fewer bounces and a more seamless experience overall.
Identifying key metrics
The success of speculation rules can be measured by monitoring specific metrics, especially those focused on load time and engagement, such as the Core Web Vitals. Here are some of the most relevant ones:
Largest Contentful Paint (LCP): Since speculation rules aim to optimize page loads, tracking changes in LCP can reveal whether content loads faster after implementation.
Time to First Byte (TTFB): TTFB can show if prefetching is speeding up server responses.
Interaction to Next Paint (INP): By reducing delays in loading and rendering, speculation rules can help improve INP, which measures responsiveness.
Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS): If the speculative loading is implemented carefully, CLS should be reduced by prefetching key visual elements.
Pro Tip: Use tools like Google PageSpeed Insights or Chrome DevTools to quickly look at these metrics.
Tools and methods to monitor Speculation Rule effectiveness
To get accurate insights into whether speculation rules are working, these methods can help:
User journey mapping
Tracking typical user pathways allows you to see if the anticipated pages are indeed loading faster or if users are exiting before engaging. Through Journey monitoring tools such as Google Analytics, Hotjar, FullStory and many others you can observe the most common navigation pattern for your customers.
Real User Monitoring (RUM)
These tools can also track actual user interactions and can give a close look at real-world performance. RUM solutions like New Relic or Dynatrace offer insight into which resources are loaded due to speculation rules.
Checking Speculative loads in DevTools
Chrome DevTools includes a dedicated panel to view speculative loads. You can navigate to DevTools > Application > Speculative Loads to see a list of prerendered or prefetched pages. This panel provides visibility into which pages are loaded in advance, helping you verify if speculation rules are working.
How to interpret the data
Once you have the data from your monitoring tools, here’s how to interpret the results:
Compare Before and After Implementation: Look at your KPIs from before and after you enabled speculation rules. Significant improvements in LCP, TTFB, or INP indicate they’re having a positive impact.
Identify Trends Across Pages: If only certain pages show improvement, your rules may need refining to target a broader user experience.
Improved exit rates and better engagement: If speculation rules are working effectively, you should notice a reduction in exit rates and increase in user engagement and average session duration as resources load more smoothly and users browse more.
Troubleshooting and optimizing Speculation Rules
If your metrics don’t show the expected results, here are some potential issues to troubleshoot:
Overloading with Unnecessary Prefetching/Prerendering: Make sure speculation rules are set to prefetch or prerender only the most critical pages, as too many speculative actions can have unintended effects. Chrome has a limit on the number of pages it can preload at once, so it’s best to focus on the most popular pages. Otherwise, you may hit this limit, and additional navigations won’t benefit from preloading.
Correct Targeting: Ensure you’re targeting the right pages based on actual user flow. Avoid prefetching or prerendering links that aren’t accessible from the current page through standard navigation. Also, pages that open in a new tab can’t be prerendered in Chrome version 130.0, so those links should be skipped as well.
Adjustments for Mobile Users: Prefetching and prerendering strategies should be carefully adapted for mobile devices, considering the unique challenges of mobile networks and the diverse range of device capabilities. Mobile users often experience varying network speeds and connection stability, which makes efficient resource management critical. Additionally, the design and functionality of mobile interfaces differ from desktop, so prioritizing essential content for preloading ensures a smoother, faster user experience on mobile while minimizing unnecessary data usage.
Speculation Rules made simple with Uxify
Implementing and tracking speculation rules can involve a lot of fine-tuning and constant analysis, but it doesn’t have to be complicated. Uxify’s Navigation AI takes on this task, leveraging advanced AI to optimize page speed seamlessly by analyzing user behavior and anticipating next-page visits. This ensures consistent, accelerated performance no matter where, how or what device users engage with your site.
Here’s how Uxify simplifies speculation rules:
Seamless Integration: Navigation AI integrates with your platform without requiring any infrastructure changes. It works on top of Google’s Speculation Rules API, eliminating the need for manual coding and setup.
Predictive Analysis: Using real-time and historical data, Navigation AI analyzes user behavior to predict their next actions with precision. It identifies the most likely navigation paths, ensuring only the most critical pages are preloaded.
Dynamic Optimization: Unlike static rules that require frequent updates, Navigation AI dynamically adjusts to changing user patterns and traffic trends. This ensures the right resources are preloaded at the right time, maximizing efficiency without overloading the browser.
Hands-Free Monitoring: Navigation AI continuously evaluates and optimizes the effectiveness of its preloading strategies using real-time data. It optimizes your site’s performance without requiring constant oversight, freeing up your time and resources.
Scalable Performance Gains: Whether your website is small or managing high-traffic volumes, Navigation AI scales effortlessly to ensure consistent, optimized performance across all pages and devices.
Conclusion: Enhancing Speculation Rules with AI-Driven precision
Speculation rules offer a significant opportunity to boost website performance by anticipating user needs, but tracking their effectiveness and making real-time adjustments can be a complex process. With careful monitoring through KPIs, user journey analysis, and tools like DevTools, you can gain valuable insights into whether speculation rules are delivering the desired results.
However, for those seeking a simpler, more scalable solution, Uxify’s Navigation AI can handle the heavy lifting. By harnessing AI-driven predictive navigations, Uxify continuously refines speculation rules, ensuring the speculated navigations align with user behavior across any device and layout. This not only saves time but guarantees a smooth, optimized experience for every user visit—making speculation rules a truly powerful, automated asset for your website.