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Free Plugin by andrewmoof v0.5.2

Simple DNS Prefetch

Adds (or removes) DNS prefetching meta tags to your site and speeds up your page load speed.

Simple DNS Prefetch

The facts

Rating
3.7★ from 3
Active installs
200+
Price
Free
Last updated
8 Jun 2018
Added
Sep 2017
Requires WP
4.1
Tested up to
WP 4.9.31
Downloads
5,627

Our analysis

AI-assisted

Simple DNS Prefetch is a WordPress plugin designed to reduce user-perceived latency by pre-resolving domain names before users follow links. It works by extracting domain names from hyperlinks on a page and resolving them to IP addresses in parallel with the user's reading. This can lead to faster navigation times when users click on these links.

The plugin is suitable for websites that want to improve user experience by minimising delays caused by DNS resolution. It may be particularly beneficial for sites with numerous external links, as it aims to enhance the speed of navigation for visitors.

Best for: Websites looking to enhance user experience through faster link navigation.

What it does well

  • Reduces user-perceived latency
  • Pre-resolves domain names for faster navigation
  • Uses minimal CPU and network resources

Where it falls short

  • Limited information on performance impact
  • Last updated in June 2018
  • Rated 3.7 out of 5 from 3 ratings

Verdict

Simple DNS Prefetch may help improve navigation speed for users, but its outdated status and limited ratings suggest caution before implementation.

From the developer

andrewmoof's own description of Simple DNS Prefetch, lightly tidied.

DNS resolution time can lead to a significant amount of user perceived latency. The time that DNS resolution takes is highly variable. Latency delays range from around 1ms (locally cached results) to commonly reported times of several seconds.

DNS prefetching is an attempt to resolve domain names before a user tries to follow a link. This is done using the computer’s normal DNS resolution mechanism. Once a domain name has been resolved, if the user does navigate to that domain, there will be no effective delay due to DNS resolution time. When we encounter hyperlinks in pages, we extract the domain name from each one and resolving each domain to an IP address. All this work is done in parallel with the user’s reading of the page, using minimal CPU and network resources. When a user clicks on any of these pre-resolved names, they will on average save about 200 milliseconds in their navigation (assuming the user hadn’t already visited the domain recently). More importantly than the average savings, users won’t tend to experience the “worst case” delays for DNS resolution, which are regularly over 1 second.

Read the full description on the official page →

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