diff --git a/LinkTitles.body.php b/LinkTitles.body.php
index 05c0729..350132a 100755
--- a/LinkTitles.body.php
+++ b/LinkTitles.body.php
@@ -91,9 +91,10 @@
 			global $wgLinkTitlesFirstOnly;
 			global $wgLinkTitlesWordStartOnly;
 			global $wgLinkTitlesWordEndOnly;
-			// global $wgLinkTitlesIgnoreCase;
 			global $wgLinkTitlesSmartMode;
 			global $wgCapitalLinks;
+			global $wgLinkTitlesEnableNoTargetMagicWord;
+			global $wgLinkTitlesCheckRedirect;
 
 			( $wgLinkTitlesWordStartOnly ) ? $wordStartDelim = '\b' : $wordStartDelim = '';
 			( $wgLinkTitlesWordEndOnly ) ? $wordEndDelim = '\b' : $wordEndDelim = '';
@@ -180,28 +181,47 @@
 
 			// Iterate through the page titles
 			foreach( $res as $row ) {
-				// Obtain an instance of a Title class for the current database 
-				// row.
+				// Obtain an instance of a Title class for the current database row.
 				$targetTitle = Title::makeTitle(NS_MAIN, $row->page_title);
-				$targetTitleText = $targetTitle->getText();
 
-				// Obtain a page object for the current title, so we can check for 
-				// the presence of the __NOAUTOLINKTARGET__ magic keyword.
-				$targetPage = WikiPage::factory($targetTitle);
-				$targetText = $targetPage->getText();
+				if ( $wgLinkTitlesCheckRedirect || $wgLinkTitlesEnableNoTargetMagicWord ) {
+					// Obtain a page object for the current title, so we can check for 
+					// the presence of the __NOAUTOLINKTARGET__ magic keyword.
+					$targetPageContent = WikiPage::factory($targetTitle)->getContent();
 
-				// To prevent linking to pages that redirect to the current page,
-				// obtain the title that the target page redirects to. Will be null 
-				// if there is no redirect.
-				$redirectTitle = $targetPage->getContent()->getUltimateRedirectTarget();
+					// To prevent linking to pages that redirect to the current page,
+					// obtain the title that the target page redirects to. Will be null 
+					// if there is no redirect.
+					if ( $wgLinkTitlesCheckRedirect ) {
+						$redirectTitle = $targetPageContent->getUltimateRedirectTarget();
+						$redirectCheck = !( $redirectTitle && $redirectTitle->equals($myTitle) );
+					}
+					else
+					{
+						$redirectCheck = true;
+					};
+
+					if ( $wgLinkTitlesEnableNoTargetMagicWord ) {
+						$magicWordCheck = ! $targetPageContent->matchMagicWord(
+							MagicWord::get('MAG_LINKTITLES_NOTARGET') ); 
+					}
+					else 
+					{
+						$magicWordCheck = true;
+					};
+				}
+				else
+				{
+					$redirectCheck = true;
+					$magicWordCheck = true;
+				}
 
 				// Proceed only if the currently examined page does not redirect to 
-				// our page and does not contain the no-target magic word
-				if (
-						!( $redirectTitle && $redirectTitle->equals($myTitle) ) &&
-						!( $targetPage->getContent()->matchMagicWord(
-							MagicWord::get('MAG_LINKTITLES_NOTARGET') ) ) ) {
-
+				// our page and does not contain the no-target magic word.
+				// If the corresponding configuration variables are set to false,
+				// both 'check' variables below will be set to true by the code 
+				// above.
+				if ( $redirectCheck && $magicWordCheck ) {
 					// split the page content by [[...]] groups
 					// credits to inhan @ StackOverflow for suggesting preg_split
 					// see http://stackoverflow.com/questions/10672286
@@ -209,6 +229,7 @@
 
 					// Escape certain special characters in the page title to prevent
 					// regexp compilation errors
+					$targetTitleText = $targetTitle->getText();
 					$quotedTitle = preg_quote($targetTitleText, '/');
 
 					// Depending on the global configuration setting $wgCapitalLinks,
diff --git a/LinkTitles.php b/LinkTitles.php
index 970cf21..3392e40 100755
--- a/LinkTitles.php
+++ b/LinkTitles.php
@@ -143,6 +143,38 @@
 	/// @ingroup config
 	$wgLinkTitlesSmartMode = true;
 
+	/// Determines whether or not to check if a page redirects to the current 
+	/// page. Normally one would want to have the default behavior (true), but 
+	/// this check requires a time-consuming database query for every page in 
+	/// the wiki.
+	/// @note For maximum performance, set both $wgLinkTitlesCheckRedirect and 
+	/// $wgLinkTitlesEnableNoTargetMagicWord to false in LocalSettings.php.
+	/// On the developer's machine, fetching the target page content increased 
+	/// the run time from about 50 ms to about 500 ms on a wiki with 90 pages 
+	/// (Intel Core i5-3320M, 2x 2.6 GHz, 16 GB RAM, PHP 5.5.9, Apache 2.4.7, 
+	/// MySQL 5.5.37, MediaWiki 1.23.0). If any of the two mentioned variables 
+	/// is set to true, a page content request will be performed for every 
+	/// page in the wiki whenever a single page is edited or parsed in batch 
+	/// mode.
+	/// @ingroup config
+	$wgLinkTitlesCheckRedirect = true;
+
+	/// Determines whether or not the magic word __NOAUTOLINKTARGET__ is 
+	/// enabled or not. If __NOAUTOLINKTARGET__ is included in a page, this 
+	/// page will never be linked to by the extension. The default is enabled 
+	/// (true), but it comes at the cost of performance.
+	/// @note For maximum performance, set both $wgLinkTitlesCheckRedirect and 
+	/// $wgLinkTitlesEnableNoTargetMagicWord to false in LocalSettings.php.
+	/// On the developer's machine, fetching the target page content increased 
+	/// the run time from about 50 ms to about 500 ms on a wiki with 90 pages 
+	/// (Intel Core i5-3320M, 2x 2.6 GHz, 16 GB RAM, PHP 5.5.9, Apache 2.4.7, 
+	/// MySQL 5.5.37, MediaWiki 1.23.0). If any of the two mentioned variables 
+	/// is set to true, a page content request will be performed for every 
+	/// page in the wiki whenever a single page is edited or parsed in batch 
+	/// mode.
+	/// @ingroup config
+	$wgLinkTitlesEnableNoTargetMagicWord = true;
+
 	/// Time limit for online batch processing. This determines the maximum 
 	/// amount of time in seconds that page processing will take before a 
 	/// refresh of the special page is issued.