Someone opens your Google Ads account, adds a column, and announces that your keywords have a poor Quality Score. It sounds like a verdict. You may be told it is why your clicks cost so much, or why a competitor appears above you, and that fixing it is the first job.
Quality Score is worth understanding, but it is easy to misread. This post explains what Google Ads Quality Score is, what its three parts mean in plain words, how to improve Quality Score through changes you actually control, and when a low score is not the problem worth chasing.
What Quality Score is, and what it is not
Quality Score is a rating Google gives each keyword, on a scale from 1 to 10. It compares your ad and landing page with other advertisers who showed ads for the same keyword. A higher score suggests your ad and page are more useful to people searching for that keyword than average.
Two things are easy to get wrong.
- It is a diagnostic, not the auction itself. Google describes Quality Score as a tool to help you find where to improve. The live auction uses its own real-time quality judgement for each search, which takes into account things the score does not, such as the device and the exact words typed.
- It is per keyword, not per account. There is no single score for your whole account. One keyword can rate well while another in the same ad group rates poorly, because each one is matched against different searches and competitors.
Still, the ingredients that feed the score also feed the auction. Improving them tends to help your ads appear more often and cost less per click, which is why the score deserves attention as a guide.
Where to see it
Quality Score is not shown by default. In the keywords view, add the columns for Quality Score and its three components. You can also add historical versions, which show what the score was across a past date range rather than today. A dash instead of a number means there is not yet enough data for that keyword, which is common in small accounts and for keywords that rarely show.
The three parts of Google Ads Quality Score
Each part is rated as above average, average or below average.
Expected click-through rate
How likely Google thinks people are to click your ad when it shows for this keyword, compared with other advertisers. It is a prediction based on past performance, adjusted for things like ad position, so you are not penalised just for appearing lower on the page.
What lowers it: ads that do not mention what the person searched for, ads that look like everyone else’s, and keywords matching lots of searches where your ad is not what people want.
Ad relevance
How closely your ad matches the meaning of the search. This is the most direct of the three. If the keyword is about knee pain physiotherapy and the ad talks about a general clinic with many departments, relevance suffers.
What lowers it: ad groups holding too many different themes, so one set of ads tries to cover them all.
Landing page experience
How useful and relevant the page is to someone who clicks. Google looks at whether the page relates to the search, whether it is easy to use on a phone, whether it is clear about the business, and how readily people can find what they came for.
What lowers it: sending every ad to the home page, pages that are slow on mobile data, pages that hide contact details, and pages that say little about the specific service.
How to improve Quality Score with changes you control
Work from the component that is below average. Each one has a different fix, and changing all of them at once makes it hard to see what helped.
| Component below average | First thing to check | Typical fix |
|---|---|---|
| Ad relevance | Does the ad group mix several services? | Split it so each ad group covers one service with its own ads |
| Expected click-through rate | Do the headlines use the searcher’s own words? | Rewrite headlines around the search and a clear reason to choose you |
| Expected click-through rate | Is the keyword pulling in loosely related searches? | Tighten the match type or add negatives |
| Landing page experience | Does the page match what the ad offers? | Send the ad group to a page about that service |
| Landing page experience | Is the page slow or awkward on a phone? | Fix speed and layout on mobile first |
For the ad itself, our post on writing headlines and descriptions covers how to match the search without stuffing keywords into every line. For the page, our guide on what to fix first on a slow landing page is a good starting point.
Things that do not help much
Some fixes get recommended often and change little.
- Repeating the keyword in every headline. Relevance is about meaning, not repetition. An ad that reads naturally and answers the search does better than one that says the same phrase five times.
- Pausing and recreating keywords. The score is based on performance history for that keyword in context. Deleting and re-adding it does not give you a clean start in any useful sense.
- Chasing a perfect score. A keyword rated average that brings steady enquiries at a cost you can live with is doing its job. Effort is better spent on keywords that are both expensive and poorly rated.
- Raising bids to fix it. Bids do not feed into Quality Score. They affect your position in the auction, which is a separate thing.
When a low score is not the real problem
Quality Score measures how your ad and page compare for searches. It says nothing about whether the visitors become customers. A keyword with a high score can still bring the wrong people if its searches are poorly chosen. A keyword with a modest score can be one of your best earners.
So read it alongside conversions. If a keyword converts well, its score is a curiosity. If a keyword is expensive, converts poorly and has a low score, the score points to where to look first. And if the whole account converts poorly, check tracking and the website before blaming quality.
Be wary too of reports that lead with an average Quality Score across the account. Averages hide the keywords that matter. Ask instead which specific keywords spend the most and how each one rates.
A sensible order for a small account
- Add the Quality Score and component columns to the keywords view.
- Sort by cost, so you look at the keywords spending the most money first.
- For each expensive keyword with a below-average part, note which part.
- Fix ad relevance first by tightening ad groups, since it is the most direct.
- Then rewrite ads for expected click-through rate.
- Then work on the landing page, which often takes longest but helps every keyword pointing at it.
- Give each change a few weeks before judging, because the score reflects past performance.
Our plain guide to how Google Ads works explains how quality sits alongside your bid in the wider auction.
Frequently asked questions
Why does a new keyword show no Quality Score at all?
Google needs enough searches and impressions for that exact keyword before it can compare your ad with others. Until then, the column shows a dash. Many keywords in small local accounts never gather enough data, which is normal and does not mean anything is wrong with them.
Does Quality Score affect how much I pay per click?
Indirectly. The score itself is a diagnostic, but it reflects the same qualities the live auction uses. Ads judged more useful can win a given position for less, so improving relevance and landing pages often lowers costs over time, while bids alone cannot buy a better rating.
Can the same keyword have different scores in different ad groups?
Yes. The score depends on the ads and landing page in that ad group as well as the keyword. The same keyword sitting next to closely matched ads and a specific page can rate higher than it does in a mixed ad group pointing at a general page.
Is Quality Score used in Performance Max or Display campaigns?
Quality Score as a 1 to 10 keyword rating is a Search campaign feature, since it is tied to keywords. Other campaign types still judge ad and page quality in their own ways, but you will not see the same keyword score for them in the account.
Most Quality Score problems come back to two things: ad groups that try to cover too much, and pages that do not match the ad. Both are fixable. If you would like help with either, our Google Ads management service works on the account and the landing pages together, and our overview of digital marketing services shows the wider picture.
Next in this series: How to Write Google Ads That Searchers Choose
