Speculation rules on homepages, by platform
| Platform | With speculation rules | Homepages | CWV pass with | CWV pass without |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| WooCommerce | 90.6% | 21,999 | 36.1% | 35.4% |
| Shopify | 89.8% | 47,127 | 59.2% | 44.8% |
| WordPress (all) | 82.3% | 113,593 | 49.3% | 48.1% |
| Wix | 80.1% | 899 | 56.8% | 57.8% |
| Webflow | 4.8% | 2,589 | 44.0% | 50.0% |
| Other platforms | 3.9% | 618,129 | 43.3% | 39.4% |
| Top 1M overall | 20.5% | 782,850 | 51.3% | 39.9% |
Source: PageSpeed Matters, HTTP Archive and CrUX, Sept 2026. WooCommerce is a subset of WordPress (all). Squarespace is left out (too few homepages with rules).
Summary
Speculation rules let a page tell the browser which links a visitor is likely to click next, so the browser can prefetch or prerender them. When the guess is right, the next page appears almost instantly. For stores, where shoppers click from category to product to cart, that can make browsing feel much faster.
We checked how many top 1M homepages ship speculation rules. Stores lead by a wide margin: 89.8% of Shopify homepages and 90.6% of WooCommerce homepages have them, against 20.5% of the top 1M overall. Almost all of that comes from platform defaults, not from store owners adding the feature themselves.
What we measured
We used the HTTP Archive crawl of the top 1M sites from September 2026, on mobile, covering 782,850 homepages. A homepage counts as using speculation rules when it has a speculation rules script in the HTML or a speculation rules HTTP header. Platform comes from the HTTP Archive crawl, and WooCommerce is counted as a subset of WordPress.
For speed, we joined homepages to Chrome UX Report (CrUX) field data at the 75th percentile. A homepage passes Core Web Vitals when loading, responsiveness and visual stability are all good.
This measures presence, not effect. A homepage can ship rules that never fire, and our data cannot show whether the rules make any page faster.
Stores lead on speculation rules
Speculation rules are on 89.8% of top 1M Shopify homepages (42,322 of 47,127) and 90.6% of WooCommerce homepages (19,936 of 21,999). Across all 782,850 top 1M homepages, the figure is 20.5% (160,542).
On both platforms, the rules arrive with the platform itself, so nearly every store gets them without doing anything.
89.8%
Share of top 1M Shopify homepages that ship speculation rules (42,322 of 47,127).
Platform defaults drive almost all of it
The pattern repeats wherever a platform turns the feature on. 82.3% of WordPress homepages (113,593) and 80.1% of Wix homepages (899) ship speculation rules. Where the platform does not, adoption is tiny: 4.8% on Webflow (2,589), 0.4% on Squarespace (513) and 3.9% of sites on other platforms (618,129).
WordPress core now includes speculative loading by default, which fits the high WordPress figure. WordPress sites without WooCommerce are slightly behind stores: 80.3% of 91,630 non-store WordPress homepages have speculation rules. Sites that are kept on older versions, or that switch the feature off, likely make up most of the rest.
The most popular sites use it least
Adoption falls as sites get more popular. Only 9.2% of Top 1K homepages (754) use speculation rules, rising to 11.5% of ranks 1K to 10K (6,746), 14.6% of ranks 10K to 100K (67,308) and 21.2% of the rest of the top 1M (708,042).
The feature spreads through platform defaults, and the most popular sites are likely more often custom builds that would need to add it on purpose.
Speed gaps mostly reflect platform, not the feature
Homepages with speculation rules pass Core Web Vitals 51.3% of the time (143,967 with CrUX), against 39.9% without (456,540). That looks like a large advantage, but it mostly reflects which platforms ship the feature, not what the feature does.
Compare within a platform and the gap shrinks or disappears. Within WooCommerce it is only 36.1% against 35.4%. Within WordPress as a whole it is 49.3% against 48.1%. On Wix (56.8% against 57.8%) and Webflow (44.0% against 50.0%), homepages with rules pass less often than those without.
Shopify is the exception in size: homepages with speculation rules pass 59.2% (40,762 with CrUX) against 44.8% for the 4,495 without. Shopify homepages without the rules may differ in other ways too, such as custom or headless storefronts, so this is still a comparison of different kinds of sites rather than proof that the rules help.
What this means for your store
If you run Shopify or a current WordPress install, you likely already ship speculation rules. Check rather than assume:
- Open Chrome DevTools, go to Application, then Speculative loads, to see the rules on your page and whether prefetches or prerenders succeed.
- Make sure rules exclude cart, checkout, account and logout links, so the browser does not prefetch pages that change state.
- If your analytics or ad tags count prerendered pages as views, confirm they wait until the page is actually shown.
On a custom or headless store, adding conservative rules for category and product links is a low-effort way to try to make the next click faster; measure the result in your own real-user data.
Sources
- HTTP Archive crawl of the top 1M sites, September 2026, mobile
- Chrome UX Report (CrUX) field data, p75, September 2026
- Speculation rules documentation, MDN: https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/Speculation_Rules_API
Frequently asked questions
What percentage of websites use speculation rules?
20.5% of top 1M homepages ship speculation rules (160,542 of 782,850). Stores lead: 89.8% of Shopify homepages and 90.6% of WooCommerce homepages have them.
Do Shopify stores use speculation rules?
Almost all of them. 89.8% of top 1M Shopify homepages (42,322 of 47,127) ship speculation rules, which points to a platform default rather than store owners adding it.
Do speculation rules improve Core Web Vitals?
Our data cannot show that. Homepages with rules pass 51.3% against 39.9% without, but within WooCommerce the gap is only 36.1% against 35.4%, so the overall gap mostly reflects which platforms ship the feature.
How do I check if my site uses speculation rules?
In Chrome DevTools, open Application, then Speculative loads. It lists the rules on the page and whether each prefetch or prerender succeeded.
Speculation rules are cheap to add or tune, and set up well they make the click from category to product feel instant. Need help with this? See our ecommerce CRO agency.