diff --git a/lib/core/constants.js b/lib/core/constants.js
index 3880c0a1..71918e37 100644
--- a/lib/core/constants.js
+++ b/lib/core/constants.js
@@ -28,6 +28,7 @@ const definitions = [
 const constants = {
   helpUrlBase: 'https://dequeuniversity.com/rules/',
   gridSize: 200,
+  selectorSimilarFilterLimit: 700,
   results: [],
   resultGroups: [],
   resultGroupMap: {},
diff --git a/lib/core/utils/get-selector.js b/lib/core/utils/get-selector.js
index 17ffdb0f..67b81438 100644
--- a/lib/core/utils/get-selector.js
+++ b/lib/core/utils/get-selector.js
@@ -4,6 +4,8 @@ import getNodeAttributes from './get-node-attributes';
 import matchesSelector from './element-matches';
 import isXHTML from './is-xhtml';
 import getShadowSelector from './get-shadow-selector';
+import memoize from './memoize';
+import constants from '../../core/constants';
 
 const ignoredAttributes = [
   'class',
@@ -376,8 +378,8 @@ function generateSelector(elm, options, doc) {
     } else {
       selector = features;
     }
-    if (!similar) {
-      similar = Array.from(doc.querySelectorAll(selector));
+    if (!similar || similar.length > constants.selectorSimilarFilterLimit) {
+      similar = findSimilar(doc, selector);
     } else {
       similar = similar.filter(item => {
         return matchesSelector(item, selector);
@@ -401,6 +403,16 @@ function generateSelector(elm, options, doc) {
  * @param {Object} optional options
  * @returns {String|Array<String>} Unique CSS selector for the node
  */
-export default function getSelector(elm, options) {
+function getSelector(elm, options) {
   return getShadowSelector(generateSelector, elm, options);
 }
+
+// Axe can call getSelector more than once for the same element because
+// the same element can end up on multiple DqElements.
+export default memoize(getSelector);
+
+// Similar elements create similar selectors. If there are lots of similar elements on the page,
+// axe ends up needing to run that same selector many times. We can memoize for a huge perf boost.
+const findSimilar = memoize((doc, selector) =>
+  Array.from(doc.querySelectorAll(selector))
+);