WordPress.org

Weston Ruter

WordPress Performance Team

<p><em>This plugin was formerly called as “No-cache BFCache”, which admittedly was a poor jargony name and was too narrowly scoped.</em></p>
<p>This plugin enables instant back/forward navigation via the browser’s <a href="https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Glossary/bfcache" rel="nofollow ugc">bfcache</a>. It does this by removing the <code>no-store</code> directive from the <code>Cache-Control</code> response header, which WordPress sends by default when <code>nocache_headers()</code> is called. This happens primarily when a user is logged in, but some plugins may send these “no-cache” headers such as on the Cart or Checkout pages for an e-commerce site. <strong>Upon activation, to see the effect, you must log out of WordPress and log back in again, ensuring “Remember Me” is checked.</strong> Even so, another plugin, theme or server configuration may be active which makes pages <a href="https://web.dev/articles/bfcache#optimize" rel="nofollow ugc">ineligible for bfcache</a> due to other <a href="https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/Performance_API/Monitoring_bfcache_blocking_reasons#blocking_reasons" rel="nofollow ugc">blocking reasons</a>. Nevertheless, the removal of <code>no-store</code> will <em>still speed up back/forward navigations</em> since pages may then be served from the browser’s HTTP cache, eliminating the need to re-download the HTML from the server. This is a feature plugin to implement <a href="https://core.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/63636" rel="nofollow ugc">#63636</a> in WordPress core.</p>
<p>Blog post: <a href="https://weston.ruter.net/2025/07/23/instant-back-forward-navigations-in-wordpress/" rel="nofollow ugc">Instant Back/Forward Navigations in WordPress</a></p>
<p>The speed of page navigations in WordPress saw a big boost in 6.8 with the introduction of <a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2025/03/06/speculative-loading-in-6-8/" rel="nofollow ugc">Speculative Loading</a>. However, by default Speculative Loading in WordPress is not configured to enable <em>instant</em> page loads, which requires a non-conservative eagerness with the prerender mode; not all sites can even opt in to prerendering due to compatibility issues, such as with analytics, and due to concerns about sustainability with unused prerenders (e.g. increasing server load and taxing a user’s bandwidth/CPU). While Speculative Loading (i.e. the Speculation Rules API) is relatively new and currently only supported in Chromium browsers (e.g. Chrome and Edge), there is a much older web platform technology that enables prerendering <em>and</em> which is supported in all browsers: the back/forward cache (bfcache). This instant loading involves no network traffic and no CPU load, since previously visited pages are stored in memory. According to the web.dev article on <a href="https://web.dev/articles/bfcache" rel="nofollow ugc">back/forward cache</a>:</p>
<p><strong>Chrome usage data shows that 1 in 10 navigations on desktop and 1 in 5 on mobile are either back or forward. With bfcache enabled, browsers could eliminate the data transfer and time spent loading for billions of web pages every single day!</strong></p>
<p>Also learn more via the following video:</p>
<p><iframe loading="lazy" title="Debugging bfcache, make your page load instantly #DevToolsTips" width="750" height="422" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/Y2IVv5KnrmI?feature=oembed" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" referrerpolicy="strict-origin-when-cross-origin" allowfullscreen></iframe></p>
<p>Normally, WordPress sends a <code>Cache-Control</code> header with the <code>no-store</code> directive when a user is logged in. This has the effect of <a href="https://web.dev/articles/bfcache#minimize-no-store" rel="nofollow ugc">breaking the browser’s bfcache</a>, which means that navigating back or forward in the browser requires the pages to be re-fetched from the server and for any JavaScript on the page to re-execute. The result can be a sluggish navigation experience not only when navigating around the WP Admin (see <a href="https://github.com/Automattic/jetpack/pull/44322#:~:text=page%20load%20is%3A-,Without%20bfcache,-With%20bfcache" rel="nofollow ugc">Jetpack demo video</a> and demo video below) but also when navigating around the frontend of a site. Furthermore, the lack of bfcache can cause data loss when data has been entered via a JavaScript-built UI since this state is lost when a page is not restored via bfcache (see <a href="https://github.com/woocommerce/woocommerce/pull/58445#issuecomment-3014404754" rel="nofollow ugc">WooCommerce demo video</a> and demo video below).</p>
<p>The reason why the <code>no-store</code> directive was added in the first place was due to a privacy concern where an authenticated user may log out of WordPress, only for another person to access the computer and click the back button to view the contents of the authenticated page loaded from bfcache or the HTTP cache. (See <a href="https://core.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/21938" rel="nofollow ugc">#21938</a>.) In practice this issue depends on the user being on a shared computer who didn’t exit the browser, and it requires the malicious user to act soon before the page is evicted from bfcache (e.g. Chrome as a <a href="https://developer.chrome.com/docs/web-platform/bfcache-ccns#:~:text=The%20bfcache%20timeout%20for%20Cache%2DControl%3A%20no%2Dstore%20pages%20is%20also%20reduced%20to%203%20minutes%20(from%2010%20minutes%20used%20for%20pages%20which%20don%27t%20use%20Cache%2DControl%3A%20no%2Dstore)%20to%20further%20reduce%20risk." rel="nofollow ugc">10-minute timeout</a>).</p>
<p>To address this privacy concern, a safeguard is in place to protect against restoring pages from bfcache and the HTTP cache after the user has logged out:</p>
<p>When authenticating to WordPress, a “bfcache session token” cookie is set along with the other authentication cookies. This cookie is not HTTP-only so that it can be read in JavaScript; it is a random string not used for any other purpose. When an authenticated page is served, this bfcache session token is included in the HTML as well as a script which reads the value of this cookie. When a user navigates away from the page and then navigates back to it, a script on the page checks if the current session token in the cookie matches the initial session token sent with the page. If they do not match (e.g. because the user has logged out or another user has logged in), then the contents of the page are cleared and the page is reloaded so that the contents are not available.</p>
<p>Since JavaScript is required to invalidate cached pages, the login form is extended to pass along whether scripting is enabled. Only when JS is enabled will the <code>no-store</code> directive be omitted from the <code>Cache-Control</code> response header. This ensures that users with JavaScript turned off will retain the privacy protection after logging out. Lastly, <code>no-store</code> is also only omitted if the user checked the “Remember Me” checkbox on the login form. Since it is highly unlikely a user on a shared computer would have checked this checkbox, this provides yet an additional safeguard (which may in the end prove excessive). A ✨ emoji is displayed next to the checkbox in a button that opens a popover that promotes the capability. If you want to opt out of this opt-in (and the sparkle) so that all logged-in users get bfcache, you can use the <code>nocache_bfcache_use_remember_me_as_opt_in</code> filter which you can use in a custom plugin or your theme:</p>
<pre>add_filter( 'nocache_bfcache_use_remember_me_as_opt_in', '__return_false' );</pre>
<p>When this plugin strips out the <code>no-store</code> directive, it also ensures that the <a href="https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/HTTP/Reference/Headers/Cache-Control#private" rel="nofollow ugc"><code>private</code> directive</a> is sent in its place: “The <code>private</code> response directive indicates that the response can be stored only in a private cache (e.g., local caches in browsers).” WordPress is already sending <code>private</code> as of <a href="https://core.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/57627" rel="nofollow ugc">#57627</a>. This directive ensures that proxies do not cache authenticated pages. In addition to ensuring <code>private</code> is present, this plugin also adds <code>no-cache</code>, <code>max-age=0</code>, and <code>must-revalidate</code> while ensuring <code>public</code> is removed, all to further guard against any misconfigured proxy from caching the private response.</p>
<h4>Demo: Navigating the WordPress Admin</h4>
<p>Without bfcache:</p>
<p><iframe loading="lazy" title="Navigating the WordPress Admin without Back/forward Cache (bfcache)" width="750" height="563" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/Cz-_L6q9ZRc?start=22&feature=oembed" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" referrerpolicy="strict-origin-when-cross-origin" allowfullscreen></iframe></p>
<p>With bfcache:</p>
<p><iframe loading="lazy" title="Navigating the WordPress Admin with Back/forward Cache (bfcache)" width="750" height="563" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/z4dILiwe0Rk?start=27&feature=oembed" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" referrerpolicy="strict-origin-when-cross-origin" allowfullscreen></iframe></p>
<h4>Demo: Navigating the WordPress Frontend</h4>
<p><strong>Without bfcache:</strong> The drafted BuddyPress activity update is lost when navigating away from the page before submitting. The activity feed and Tweet have to be reconstructed with each back/forward navigation.</p>
<p><iframe loading="lazy" title="Navigating the WordPress Frontend without Back/forward Cache (bfcache)" width="750" height="563" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/Ko1w_SRlCig?feature=oembed" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" referrerpolicy="strict-origin-when-cross-origin" allowfullscreen></iframe></p>
<p><strong>With bfcache:</strong> The drafted BuddyPress activity update is preserved when navigating away from the page without submitting. The activity feed and Tweet do not have to be reconstructed when navigating to previously visited pages via the back/forward buttons.</p>
<p><iframe loading="lazy" title="Navigating the WordPress Frontend with Back/forward Cache (bfcache)" width="750" height="563" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/bzGm6LcHHAs?feature=oembed" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" referrerpolicy="strict-origin-when-cross-origin" allowfullscreen></iframe></p>


Instant Back/Forward


This is now a "must install" plugin for me on every site I work on. It's absolutely magical.


Magical

Enables back/forward cache (bfcache) for instant history navigations even when “nocache” headers are sent, such as when a user is logged in.

Aleksandr Guidrevitch

<p>WP Meteor offers an original way to further optimize your website speed.<br />
With this plugin you can <strong>increase your PageSpeed score</strong> by up to 5x.<br />
The plugin is 100% free, it is compatible and works well with most popular caching plugins like:<br />
* Autoptimize<br />
* WP Rocket<br />
* WP Total Cache<br />
* WP Super Cache<br />
* Phastpress<br />
* LiteSpeed<br />
* Hummingbird<br />
* WP Fastest Cache<br />
* SiteGround Optimizer</p>
<p>It also works well with website builders like Elementor or with image optimizers like ShortPixel.</p>
<p>The few known incompatibilities are listed in the FAQ.</p>
<h4>BENEFITS</h4>
<p>WP Meteor can improve your <a href="https://pagespeed.web.dev/" rel="nofollow ugc">Pagespeed</a> results and the actual loading time of your website by <strong>up to 5x</strong>! You do not have to take our word for it, it only takes 2 minutes to install the plugin and <a href="https://test.fastpixel.io/" rel="nofollow ugc">test how it improves</a> your website speed.<br />
And since the plugin is designed to leave no traces on your hard drive or database when deactivated and removed, <strong>there is no risk for you</strong>.</p>
<h4>HOW IT WORKS</h4>
<p>If the user does not interact with the page immediately, WP Meteor defers loading and firing scripts until the page is rendered, which increases the pagespeed metric, on average, by <strong>2-5x</strong>.</p>
<p>This delay in loading scripts greatly improves perceived load times for your visitors. It also significantly improves the following <strong>important SEO metrics</strong>:</p>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://pagespeed.web.dev/" rel="nofollow ugc">Page Speed</a></li>
<li><a href="https://web.dev/lcp/" rel="nofollow ugc">Largest Contentful Paint (LCP)</a></li>
<li><a href="https://web.dev/tti/" rel="nofollow ugc">Time To Interactive (TTI)</a></li>
<li><a href="https://web.dev/tbt/" rel="nofollow ugc">Total Blocking Time (TBT)</a></li>
</ul>
<h3>FURTHER ACCELERATE YOUR WEBSITE</h3>
<p>If you want to optimize your website’s speed to the fullest extent automatically while ensuring that all Core Web Vitals are taken care of, we recommend trying <a href="https://wordpress.org/plugins/fastpixel-website-accelerator/" rel="ugc">FastPixel.io</a> for free.<br />
The <strong>FastPixel</strong> project is a collaboration between the creator of WP Meteor and ShortPixel, and it addresses, with just a few clicks, <a href="https://fastpixel.io/blog/easy-way-to-improve-core-web-vitals-on-wordpress/?utm_source=wpmeteor-readme#common-issues-affecting-core-web-vitals" rel="nofollow ugc">all the common issues</a> that affect Core Web Vitals.</p>


WP Meteor Website Speed Optimization Addon

Let me cut to the chase. WP Meteror is an awesome plugin that actually worked for me and rocketed my score up according to Google Page Speed metrics.
Furthermore, It is fully compatible with Autoptimize and WP Super Cache, two great plugins which I persistently consider among “must-haves.” 
Being always frustrated with GPS scores, I was always looking for a way to minimize the damn “main thread work,” get rid of “render-blocking resources” and improve LCP, TTI and TBT (Ironically, Google still regards its own reCAPTCHA, Tag Manager, etc. as render-blocking or unused JavaScript!)
The optimization of JS files and applying Defer attribute to scripts, among many others, just led to a slight improvement in my score, no way comparable with that of WP Meteor.
Last but not least, using WP Meteor had some downsides on my website as Alex had clearly explained. But there is an inbuilt exclusion session which helped me exclude troublesome scripts easily.
In a nutshell, this plugin kills it on Page Speed and deserves 10 out of 5 stars!


 



Godzilla vs. Kong: The winner is… WP Meteor!

Amazing

2x-5x improvement in your Page Speed score. A completely new way of optimizing your page speed.

Instant Back/Forward vs WP Meteor Website Speed Optimization Addon