Google Prefetching for Mozilla Browsers

kv9 writes "A post on GoogleBlog reveals that Google has enabled results prefetching for Mozilla based browsers, which means that the top results of queries are being loaded in the background and pages will load faster. More info on the Mozilla Prefetching FAQ and the Google Webmaster FAQ"

Comments

Link is broken

[KinkifyTheNation]

Replace the %23 with a # and the url will work.

how about a link that works...

[... James ...]

Slashdot kills the # character in the URL: prefetching faq

Re:Links

[sharkey]

BUGzilla blocks Slashdot referrers, not MOzilla.

Yes - from the page with the bad link

[slash-tard]

1. Type "about:config" the address bar.

2. Scroll down to the setting "network.prefetch-next" and set the value to "False".

Comments

[hendridm]

3. I want to block/ignore prefetch requests. What should I do?

To block or ignore prefetch requests (from Google and other web sites), you should configure your web server to return a 404 HTTP response code for requests that contain the "X-moz: prefetch" header.

Sucks for those of us on shared providers, I guess, who don't want this so our bandwidth costs don't increase.

I wish they had an option in the Google preferences to disable this, as I don't need a slower connection. Fortunately, you can disable it:

Yes, there is a hidden preference that you can set to disable link prefetching. Add this line to your prefs.js file located in your Mozilla profile directory:

user_pref("network.prefetch-next", false);

It would be nice if there was an option in Firefox prefs to do this so I don't have to remember it every time I reload.

Re:Comments

[justforaday]

It would be nice if there was an option in Firefox prefs to do this so I don't have to remember it every time I reload.

Doesn't changing this value on the about:config screen do that?

Result, not results, and then still not always

[Anonymous Coward]

Only when google is confident that the top result is the one you want - the one link that the vast majority of people actually click - do they include the prefetch link for that one resource. Go and try it for yourself, and look for prefetch in the source. For the vast majority of searches, it isn't there. Only when looking for the authoritive resource (such as stanford.edu for "stanford") is the prefetch link actually there.

Sure, their metrics might be off at times, but the way this has been implemented is definitely a good way, and will be very helpful for users of all browsers implementing prefetching (which currently is gecko-based only afaik, but could easily enough include opera and safari and such as well in the near future).

How to turn it off yourself

[dave7e9q]

Type about:config ... then scroll down to network.prefetch-next ... double click it to "false" ... all done.

Re:Watch for this...

[anethema]

So turn it off in about:config, nothing lost.

Re:But usually the top links on google

[md27]

You do have this chance to vote, if you find a useful page clicking the "More like this" link, not only gives you pages tuned closer to that page, but it also tells Google that's what you wanted to see when you searched in the first place.

google tracks clicks sometimes

[slashkitty]

They do put in click tracking links sometimes.

For example if you search for: ~hot

You'll get the tracking links. I think it's random on many searches, but on ~ searches, they always have it.

Re:google tracks clicks sometimes

[red tiger]

Actually the tilde-feature is properly documented.

It is called synonym search and it really does some dictinary lookup, as it doesn't search for just the term entered but also its synonyms.

Seems quite useful to me... To be honest, I had never heard of it before I read this thread here :)

Re:Watch for this...

[damiam]

Google does use a redirect script, but only for a small percentage of sessions. And you probably wouldn't notice; they use Javascript to display the original URL in the status bar. (IIRC)