There's been some other postings about this issue, and it has been stated that there is more than enough xp available to get players to the levels they should be at by the next adventure, this factors in the possibility of characters missing encounters and loss of xp due to character death.
If they are a little ahead at SWW it is easy to skip a few encounters in that adventure, so that they are back on track when they get to Here there be monsters. I actually found that my players got a little behind on xp (and I even ran a quick sidetrek couple of sessions between Bullwug Gambit and SWW). This happened in part because I cut back some of the xp awards a bit, especially in the guildhall. I wasn't going to give out a CR1 reward for each of the rogues they killed, I find the challenge rating of level character's over rated, so tend to give less for them. They have been about 1 level behind on average since Bullywug gambit. They have really only just caught up now, and we are starting city of broken Idols, but this has never been a big concern for me.
There certainly feels like plenty of xp to go around in the first two adventures, but Bullywug gambit has some pretty tough moments, so being 4th level might not be a bad thing especially if there are only four players.
My advice is not to worry about it. If the party seems too far ahead when you start SWW then skip a couple of the encounters along the way.
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Sometimes if you want to keep things going a certain way, you just have to lock the XP gain until you're ready to unlock it. The good news is that the treasure level for STAP follows the wealth by level table very well until you get to Scuttlecove (after that adventure they will be swimming in extra items to trade), so they won't be treasure heavy if you slow down the XP. The bad news is that they won't be rewarded for fights.
If they are pushing into 11th level before they defend Farshore against the big attack from the pirates (Tides of Dread), you may want to slow or halt the XP's until they start the next one (Lightless Depths). Otherwise you'll be making a regular habit of adjusting the encounters, AND, they will actually be behind on the treasure levels (they'll be ahead in character levels though, so they will have an advantage). I would allow them to reach 15th before fighting Khala at the end of City of Broken Idols, though. He's a nasty one!
I guess it comes down to whether or not you want to adjust the adventures to challenge them.
I usually allow a half level ahead or so for parties that have been thorough. More than a full level ahead, and I'm hesitant.
I'm going to pipe in to advocate story awards. I have done away with xp entirely, granting levelups as per the guidelines of each module. This works well and takes some hassle out of DMing for me.
This allows me to add or edit encounters as I see fit, w/o worry of over / underpowering the PC's from that point on. Also takes away players motivation to comb every square foot of everything (for metagame reasons) and pushes them to advance the story.
my 2cents.
For whatever reason, the PCs absolutely hustle past the first few levels. My group leveled once every single playing session, but when they hit the Sea Wyvern's Wake they slowed down quite a bit. By the looks of things so far compared to the expected levels in the modules, leveling gets slower and slower later in the adventure path, until the final modules where they are expected to level only once per module.
Anyway, I had PCs pushing 4th level at the end of TINH, and I'm still looking at 9th-level PCs for the end of HTBM, exactly as expected. There's a good chance it'll take care of itself for you, too.
You really don't need to worry about this so much. If the party gets ahead in level, they'll get a bit less xp for each encounter.
If they are so thorough, no reason to penalize them for it - they'll be slightly ahead of the curve, and have a slightly easier time for their efforts, but it's pretty much impossible to "power search" a party to extra-high level on an AP - the xp system will simply not reward them as well for facing things geared to a somewhat lower party.
As someone else pointed out, its treasure that can skew the curve most, since there is not a balancing force for it. (e.g. hand an 8th level party a Staff of the Magi - they'll blow through every encounter for many levels, but since their level isn't increased, they get full xp benefit every time).
I'm with Majuba here. If their super thorough its not going to help that much. The system compensates for XP and if their too powerful it gives them less and if their too weak it gives them less. Of course that only works for XP.
If their too powerful because of money or a really good point buy or phenomenal rolls then the system can't compensate and in fact its totally screwy because its trying to bring them in line with a power level that is not appropriate. Hence a DM with really powerful characters gets ever more frustrated because the obvious solution of just using more powerful monsters means simply results in the Players getting scads of XP and gaining even more power at a breakneck pace,
The real answer here is to give the PCs a level adjustment to put them in line with their actual power. Or easier still...
if they are 1 level or so too powerful they only get 75% of normal XP
If they are 2 levels or so too powerful they only get 50% normal XP
If they are 3 levels or so too powerful they only get 25% of normal XP
If they are 4 levels or so too powerful...what the hell did you do that your PCs are 4 levels too powerful? How the hell did you manage that? Go back to DM school!