Link prefetching

Link prefetching is a standards compliant mechanism used by web browsers, which utilizes browser idle time to download or prefetch documents that the user might visit in the near future. A web page provides a set of prefetching hints to the browser, and after the browser is finished loading the page, it begins silently prefetching specified documents and stores them in its cache. When the user visits one of the prefetched documents, it can be served up quickly out of the browser s cache.

This mechanism was introduced by Mozilla Application Suite and its derivatives. Google (search engine) is the first well-known website that takes advantage of this feature so as to improve the user experience.

=External links=

*[http://www.mozilla.org/projects/netlib/Link_Prefetching_FAQ.html Mozilla Link Prefetching FAQ] *[http://www.google.com/help/features.html#prefetch Google Help: Search Features]