Google adds experimental soft navigation metrics to CrUX

Google announced the inclusion of experimental versions of all three Core Web Vitals in the Chrome User Experience Report (CrUX) as of the release published October 13, 2026. (CrUX: a report from google that provides data on the real user experience of pages in the chrome browser.) These metrics account for soft navigation—in-app page changes that occur without a full reload—and the data is now available via BigQuery, the CrUX API, and a new toggle in CrUX Vis. The update specifically benefits single-page applications (SPAs) by measuring subsequent interactions individually rather than attributing them to the initial landing URL. (single-page applications (SPAs): web applications that update content dynamically without requiring the entire page to reload from the server.)

How soft navigation differs from hard loads

Soft navigation refers to changes in a web application where the content and the URL both update, but the browser does not perform a full page reload. Chrome identifies these actions using the Soft Navigations API, which has been enabled by default since the release of Chrome Version 151 on July 28. This mechanism relies on the History API—the technical interface used to track and record soft navigation events—to detect when a user triggers an in-app change.

Prior to this update

Prior to this update, CrUX only measured an SPA’s first load. The system grouped all subsequent in-app interactions together with that first load, meaning any performance issues during follow-up clicks were attributed to the landing URL. The new system tracks each change in content and URL individually, providing a destination-specific metric for every interaction.

Data reveals significant performance gains for SPA-heavy sites

Sites that rely heavily on soft navigations see a significant jump in experimental scores because follow-up clicks are generally faster than initial page loads. Among Android origins where 75% to 100% of page views are soft navigations, the share of sites achieving a ‘good’ LCP score jumped from 26% in the stable metric to 87% in the experimental version. (LCP: a metric measuring the time it takes for the largest content element to become visible on the screen.) The report notes that this does not mean SPAs are faster than multi-page websites overall, but rather that follow-up clicks are faster on any site, bringing SPAs with many follow-up visits in line with multi-page sites.

INP (Interaction to Next Paint) and CLS (Cumulative Layout Shift) also show improvements

INP (Interaction to Next Paint) and CLS (Cumulative Layout Shift) also show improvements under the new logic. For INP, the metric now measures responsiveness per page view instead of using the slowest interaction across a session, which roughly doubles Android pass rates for sites relying mainly on soft navigations. For CLS, layout shift events are now grouped by view rather than session, which places SPA-heavy desktop sites on par with multi-page sites.

Comparative analysis of landing page vs. in-app interaction costs

The transition to per-view measurement eliminates the ‘landing page penalty’ where a single slow initial load would mask the performance of subsequent, faster in-app actions. By separating these costs, the experimental metrics provide a more accurate reflection of the user experience within a modern web application. The data confirms this shift: when soft navigations were included in the September dataset, the overall success rate for the Core Web Vitals test increased from 55.9 percent to 59.5 percent.

Technical availability via BigQuery, CrUX API, and History API

Practitioners can access these new metrics immediately through three primary channels. The experimental fields—labeled as experimental_largest_contentful_paint_with_softnavs and corresponding fields for INP and CLS—are currently available in the BigQuery dataset and the CrUX API. Additionally, the Soft Navigations API, enabled in Chrome Version 151, serves as the underlying technical foundation for these measurements.

Roadmap to Search Console integration

Google intends to move these metrics from an experimental status to a stable status for use in Search Console, but this remains a multi-step process. Chrome aims to conclude the experimental status by May 2027, provided it receives sufficient feedback. The November CrUX release will serve as the next checkpoint for soft-navigation versions of FCP and navigation types. Search Console will only adopt the new data once the metrics have successfully completed their experimental phase.

How to use the CrUX Vis toggle to audit your SPA

CrUX Vis now includes an ‘Include soft navigations’ toggle that allows users to view experimental and stable scores side by side. This allows developers to see exactly how much of their current ‘Poor’ score is being driven by the lack of soft navigation tracking. However, the toggle will show no change for websites that perform a full reload on every click, as those sites do not trigger the Soft Navigations API.

Frontend Engineers, Technical SEO Practitioners, Growth Engineers, and Data Analysts

Frontend Engineers should use these metrics to verify that their SPA navigation logic correctly updates the URL to trigger the Soft Navigations API. They can compare the navigation performance of their current React Router configuration against the new experimental CrUX scores to ensure in-app transitions meet performance targets.

Technical SEO Practitioners should monitor the CrUX Vis toggle to audit how their SPAs currently perform. They can compare current stable scores in Google Search Console with these experimental soft navigation scores to identify if their site is being unfairly penalized by the landing page measurement logic.

Growth Engineers should query the BigQuery dataset to extract the experimental_largest_contentful_paint_with_softnavs data. This allows them to quantify the ‘SPA parity’ gap and identify which specific in-app transitions cause layout shifts or slow interactions.

Data Analysts should monitor the CrUX API documentation for the inclusion of the three new soft navigation fields. They can use this data to provide more granular performance reporting for high-traffic web applications that rely on dynamic content swapping.

Content Marketers and SEO Beginners can ignore this

Content Marketers can ignore this update because it is a technical infrastructure change that does not affect content strategy or keyword ranking. They should instead focus on general SEO content strategy guides.

SEO Beginners should skip this update as it requires a technical understanding of SPAs and browser APIs. They would be better served by introductory Core Web Vitals guides that cover basic concepts like LCP and CLS.

A React-based e-commerce audit: worked example

Bram runs a complex React-based e-commerce site where users navigate through hundreds of products without a full page reload. Bram notices her LCP score is ‘Poor’ in the current stable CrUX report. She opens CrUX Vis and enables the ‘Include soft navigations’ toggle, which reveals that her experimental score jumps to ‘Good.’ This confirms that her follow-up clicks are fast, even if the initial load was heavy.

If Bram’s site used a traditional multi-page architecture where every click triggered a full reload, the toggle would show no change in her scores because the site would not trigger the Soft Navigations API.

What this replaces

This update replaces the practice of grouping all in-app interactions with the initial landing URL. The new method is better because it prevents the landing page from being ‘charged’ for every subsequent action, providing a more accurate performance measurement for single-page applications.

Technical Specifications

Soft Navigation

A change in both the URL and visible paint without a full browser reload.

Chrome Version

Chrome Version 151 turned on the Soft Navigations API by default on July 28.

Target Date

Chrome aims to conclude the experimental status of these metrics by May 2027.

Impact of Soft Navigations on Android LCP

The outcome for most websites

The outcome for most websites will remain unchanged, as 70% of origins in CrUX have little or no soft navigation traffic. However, for SPA-heavy sites, the path to ‘Good’ scores is now clearer. The primary requirement for these improvements is that the site must use JavaScript to dynamically swap out content and update the URL; if a site doesn’t meet this criteria, the metrics will remain static. This holds as long as the experimental status remains active; if the results vary significantly during the feedback period, the May 2027 target may shift. The cost of being wrong on this implementation is asymmetric: assuming the new metrics are live in Search Console on 13 October 2026 leads to wasted troubleshooting of non-existent data, while assuming a multi-page site benefits leads to wasted optimization of logic that won’t affect the scores.

Source story: Google Adds Experimental Soft Navigation Metrics To CrUX via @sejournal, @MattGSouthern, published by Search Engine Journal on 13 October 2026.