From 6edd5ac0b64c567ba3c3b80113ce70eb698a096e Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001
From: Usman Baig <mubaig@pm.me>
Date: Fri, 13 Mar 2026 01:17:12 +0100
Subject: [PATCH] fix: skip pageview tracking for prerendered pages

---
 CHANGELOG.md     |  1 +
 public/script.js | 10 ++++++++--
 2 files changed, 9 insertions(+), 2 deletions(-)

diff --git a/CHANGELOG.md b/CHANGELOG.md
index f29aca0..290dc5b 100644
--- a/CHANGELOG.md
+++ b/CHANGELOG.md
@@ -12,6 +12,7 @@ The format is based on [Keep a Changelog](https://keepachangelog.com/en/1.1.0/),
 - **Self-referrals no longer pollute your traffic sources.** Internal navigation within your own site (e.g. clicking from your homepage to your about page) no longer shows your own domain as a referrer. Only external traffic sources appear in your Referrers panel now.
 - **Screen size fallback now works correctly.** A variable naming issue prevented the fallback screen dimensions from being read when the primary value wasn't available. Screen size data is now reliably captured on all browsers.
 - **Browser back/forward no longer double-counts pageviews.** Pressing the back or forward button could occasionally register two pageviews instead of one. The tracking script now correctly deduplicates these navigations.
+- **Preloaded pages no longer count as visits.** Modern browsers sometimes preload pages in the background before you actually visit them. These ghost visits no longer inflate your pageview counts — only pages the visitor actually sees are tracked.
 
 ## [0.15.0-alpha] - 2026-03-13
 
diff --git a/public/script.js b/public/script.js
index 4db5dec..7517b22 100644
--- a/public/script.js
+++ b/public/script.js
@@ -329,8 +329,14 @@
     });
   }
 
-  // * Track initial pageview
-  trackPageview();
+  // * Track initial pageview (skip if page is being speculatively prerendered)
+  if (document.prerendering) {
+    document.addEventListener('prerenderingchange', function() {
+      trackPageview();
+    }, { once: true });
+  } else {
+    trackPageview();
+  }
 
   // * Track SPA navigation: MutationObserver (DOM updates) and history.pushState/replaceState
   // * (some SPAs change the URL without a DOM mutation we observe)