Core Web Vitals: CrUX Now Measures Soft Navigations

Google's Chrome UX Report (CrUX) now measures "soft navigations," the in-app view changes that single-page applications (SPAs) make without a full page load. Google announced it on web.dev on October 13, 2026. The new LCP, INP and CLS metrics are experimental, and official Core Web Vitals scores stay the same for now.

What we know

What a soft navigation is: Google describes it as an SPA updating content and the URL with JavaScript instead of loading a new page. Until now, CrUX mostly captured the first load.
What launched: three experimental metrics that include those navigations: LCP, INP and CLS "with soft navigations." Each view change that updates both content and URL counts as its own navigation, according to the post by Annie Sullivan.
Where it comes from: it follows the launch of the Soft Navigations API in Chrome 151, Google says.
Where to see it: from the October 2026 CrUX release, in BigQuery, the CrUX API and the CrUX History API. CrUX Vis also shows the new metrics for any URL or origin in the dataset.
What stays the same: Google writes that stable Core Web Vitals scores "remain unchanged" while the new versions are evaluated.
Timeline: Google aims to drop the experimental label in May 2027, depending on feedback. At that point, it says, Search Console will switch to the new data. Google expects to add FCP and navigation types in the November release.
How many sites it touches: per Google, about 70% of CrUX origins have fewer than 5% soft page views. Only 7.0% of origins on Android and 10.6% on desktop use soft navigations for more than half of their views. Among the top 1,000 sites, that rises to 35% and 42%.
How scores move: for origins with 75–100% soft navigations, "good" LCP on Android goes from 26% to 87%. Google credits code and assets reused on later views, not SPAs being faster. INP pass rates on Android roughly double for those sites, though they still trail multi-page sites. CLS is now counted per view.
Per URL: in the CrUX API, soft-navigation data is attributed to the URL the user navigated to, not the landing page.

What changes and what doesn't

Nothing changes today in Search Console or in official Core Web Vitals scores. What's new is a second, experimental set of numbers that may shift from month to month while Google refines the measurement.

A classic multi-page site, where every click loads a new page, will see little difference. That covers most standard WordPress or Drupal sites. An SPA built with React, Vue, Angular or Next.js with client-side routing should, Google expects, see scores improve or hold steady. If the metrics graduate on schedule, these are the numbers Search Console will report.

How to tell if this affects you

Check whether your site uses soft navigations. In Chrome, open DevTools (F12), go to the Network tab and filter by "Doc." Click an internal link. A new document request means a normal page load. If the URL changes and no document request appears, it was a soft navigation.
Look up your numbers in CrUX Vis. Enter your domain at cruxvis.withgoogle.com and compare the experimental metrics with the stable ones. Low-traffic sites may have no CrUX data, because it is based on real Chrome users.
Don't rebuild an SPA just to fix Search Console. If your Core Web Vitals report looks bad because of LCP on internal views, the new measurement may fix that on its own. Check the experimental figures before paying for architecture changes.
Watch INP during route changes. Google warns that heavy main-thread JavaScript during transitions can still hurt responsiveness. Review what runs when users move between sections.
If you run your own real-user monitoring, the post points to Chrome's documentation on measuring soft navigations, so you can line your data up with CrUX.
If your site is a standard WordPress or Drupal build, there's nothing to do. Step 1 will confirm it.

Sources

Updates: if Google changes the experimental metrics, adds FCP or moves the Search Console switch, it will be added here with a link.