Quick answer: Quality Score rates your keyword, ad and landing page relevance from 1 to 10. Improve it with tighter ad groups, better ads and faster pages.
Quality Score is a number from 1 to 10 that Google shows for each keyword. It’s a diagnostic tool: a rough guide to how relevant and useful your ads and landing pages are compared with other advertisers on the same keyword.
The three parts
Quality Score is based on three components, each rated Above average, Average or Below average:
- 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 the meaning of the search.
- Landing page experience: how relevant, useful and easy to use your landing page is for people who click.
Why it matters
Quality Score itself isn’t used in the auction. But the things it measures (expected CTR, ad relevance, landing page experience) feed into Ad Rank, which decides whether your ad shows, where it shows and what you pay. Better relevance can mean better positions at lower cost.
Where to see it
In the Keywords view, add the columns Quality Score, Exp. CTR, Ad relevance and Landing page exp. Keywords need enough impressions before a score appears.
How to improve each part
Expected CTR
- Include the keyword or service in headlines.
- Highlight clear benefits and offers.
- Use assets (sitelinks, callouts, call assets) to make ads more useful.
Ad relevance
- Group keywords tightly into ad groups by theme.
- Write ads specifically for each ad group, rather than one generic ad everywhere.
Landing page experience
- Send people to the most relevant page, not the homepage.
- Make the page fast, mobile-friendly and clear. Read the landing page checklist.
- Make contact information and your offer easy to find.
Don’t chase the number
A keyword with a Quality Score of 5 that brings profitable jobs is better than a 9 that brings nothing. Use Quality Score to find problems, but judge keywords by conversions and cost per enquiry.
Sources and further reading
Written by Gregory
20 years building websites and running lead generation, mostly with my own money on the line. Based in Sydney, working with clients worldwide. How I work →