What is Google Ads Quality Score?
It's Google's estimate of how good your ads and landing pages are for a given keyword, compared with other advertisers on the same keyword. It's shown on a scale of 1 to 10.
Google describes it as a diagnostic tool. It's a summary of quality, reported after the fact, that helps you see which keywords, ads or pages need work.
What are the three parts of Quality Score?
Each part is rated above average, average or below average. The ratings tell you where to look.
- Expected click-through rate: how likely people are to click your ad when it shows for that keyword.
- Ad relevance: how closely your ad matches what the person searched for.
- Landing page experience: how relevant and useful your page is to people who click, including how easily it works on a phone.
Does Quality Score affect what you pay?
Not directly, but what it measures does. Google says Quality Score itself isn't used in the auction. Instead, each auction uses real-time signals of ad quality alongside your bid to decide where your ad shows.
Those signals look at the same things: expected clicks, relevance and the landing page. So ads that are more relevant and pages that are more useful tend to win better positions for a lower cost per click. Quality Score is the report card. The auction is the exam.
How do you check your Quality Score?
In Google Ads, open the Keywords view and add the Quality Score columns: Quality Score, expected click-through rate, ad relevance and landing page experience. You can also add the historical versions to see how they've changed.
A score can show as blank when a keyword hasn't had enough searches to rate. That's normal for low-volume terms.
How do you improve Google Ads Quality Score?
Work from the weakest part first. These steps cover all three.
- Sort your keywords by spend, and look only at those that matter. A low score on a keyword nobody searches isn't worth your time.
- Note which of the three parts is below average for each one.
- For low ad relevance, split broad ad groups into tight themes, so each ad speaks to one kind of search.
- Put the searcher's own words in the headline, and say exactly what you offer.
- For low expected click-through rate, make the ad more specific: the service, the place, a reason to choose you and a clear next step. Add sitelinks and other assets.
- Add negative keywords so the ad stops showing for searches it can't win.
- For low landing page experience, send each ad group to the page that matches it, not the homepage.
- Make that page answer the search in the first screen, load fast on a phone and make the next step obvious.
- Give changes a few weeks, then check the historical columns to see what moved.
What shouldn't you do for a higher Quality Score?
Don't pause a keyword that brings in customers just because its score is low. The score is a guide, and the goal is enquiries and sales.
Don't stuff the keyword into every line of an ad or page either. Relevance is about matching what the person wants, not repeating their words.
Is Quality Score worth worrying about?
It's worth checking, not obsessing over. On your biggest keywords, a below-average rating is a useful clue that an ad or page could do better.
But the numbers that pay the bills are conversions, conversion rate and cost per enquiry in your own reporting. Fix tracking and wasted searches first. Quality usually follows.