A method and system for compensating for motion blur in optical navigation adds a correction offset to an image navigation value to adjust for varying velocities along a moving web. Reference and comparison images are acquired at different times from a moving web. An optical navigation value is computed representative of the movement of the web from the reference image to the comparison image. Blur distances for the two images can be calculated. A navigation error correction value is computed as one-half the difference between the reference blur distance and the comparison blur distance. A compensated navigation value is computed by adding the error correction value to the computed navigation value to compensate for varying web velocities.