Google Ads Quality Score and How to Improve It

What is Quality Score in Google Ads?

Quality Score is a 1 to 10 rating that Google Ads gives each keyword in a Search campaign. It tells you how your ads and landing pages compare with those of other advertisers who showed for the same search. A higher score means your ad and page are more relevant and useful to someone searching for that keyword.

As of October 2026, Google's Quality Score help page makes three points that most guides skip:

• It is a diagnostic tool. Google says Quality Score is not a key performance indicator and should not be optimized or averaged with the rest of your data.
• It is not an input in the ad auction. The auction uses live, auction-time quality signals. The 1 to 10 number is a summary of how those signals have looked over time.
• It lives at the keyword level. There is no ad group, campaign or account Quality Score, even though some tools calculate one.

Google compares your keyword with other advertisers on the exact same search over the last 90 days, so the score is relative. A 5 does not mean your ad is half good. It is a comparison with the other advertisers on that search, so the same ad and page can score lower against strong rivals than against weak ones. Google compares the score to a warning light for a car's engine (Using Quality Score to guide optimizations): it tells you where to look.

What are the three Quality Score components?

Quality Score is built from three components: expected clickthrough rate, ad relevance and landing page experience. Each one gets a status of Above average, Average or Below average, and each points to a different part of your account to fix.

Google's reading of the statuses is simple. Average or Above average means there are no major problems with that component compared with other keywords across Google Ads. Below average means a change is worth making. Google does not publish how the three statuses combine into the 1 to 10 number, so treat any "Quality Score formula" with point values as a third-party estimate.

Expected clickthrough rate (Exp. CTR)

Expected CTR predicts whether your ad will get clicked for this keyword. It is not the CTR column in your reports. Google's expected CTR definition says the status compares your keyword with all other advertisers, assumes the search matches your keyword exactly, and removes the effect of ad position and assets. That is why a top position or a new sitelink does not lift it.

Ad relevance

Ad relevance checks whether your ad speaks to what the person searched for. A Below average status usually means one ad is trying to cover too many different keywords. An ad about skillets cannot match a search for Dutch ovens well, however good the copy is.

Landing page experience

Landing page experience estimates how relevant and useful your page will be after the click. Google's definition says pages with higher ratings are usually well organized and have text that relates to the search. Its Ad Rank page adds the expectations people form from the ad they clicked and how easy the page is to navigate.

Where do you find Quality Score in Google Ads?

You find Quality Score in the keywords table of a Search campaign, after you add the Quality Score columns. These steps follow Google's instructions as of October 2026:

1. Open Keywords. In the Campaigns menu, go to Keywords. Pick one Search campaign or view all of them.
2. Open the column editor. Select the columns icon in the upper right corner of the table.
3. Open the Quality score section. Under Modify columns for keywords, open All columns, then the Quality score section.
4. Add the current columns. Select Quality Score, Exp. CTR, Ad Relevance and Landing Page Exp.
5. Add the historical columns. Select Quality Score (hist.), Exp. CTR (hist.), Ad Relevance (hist.) and Landing Page Exper. (hist.). These show past scores for the date range you are viewing. Segment the table by day to see when a score changed.
6. Apply and save. Select Apply, then save the column set so you do not rebuild it next time.

Three things can look odd in these columns:

• A dash instead of a number. There are not enough searches that exactly match the keyword to score it. Google suggests higher-volume keywords from Keyword Planner, or broader match types so the keyword enters more auctions and collects exact-match data.
• A broad keyword with a score but no impressions. If an exact match keyword in the same ad group had impressions for that search in the last 90 days, both keywords can show the same score.
• "Rarely shown due to low Quality Score." This keyword status means the keyword rarely gets impressions because its quality is too low. Google's advice is to improve the three components or replace the keyword with a more relevant one.

Is Quality Score used in the Google Ads auction?

No. Google says plainly that Quality Score is not an input in the ad auction. What the auction uses is Ad Rank, which Google calculates fresh for every search. Ad Rank includes live, auction-time measures of expected CTR, ad relevance and landing page experience, the same three things your Quality Score summarizes.

Ad Rank decides whether your ad can show and, if it can, where it appears. According to About Ad Rank, Google bases it on six factors:

1. Your bid, the most you are willing to pay for a click.
2. The quality of your ads and landing page, judged at the moment of the search.
3. Ad Rank thresholds, the minimum an ad must reach to show at all.
4. The competitiveness of the auction, meaning how close rival Ad Ranks are.
5. The context of the search: the search terms, location, device, time, and the other ads and results on the page.
6. The expected impact of assets such as sitelinks, phone numbers and other ad formats.

Google runs Ad Rank twice in each auction: once to decide whether your ad is eligible, and again to rank it against the other eligible ads. Your position can change from one search to the next.

Quality Score (in your account)

• One 1 to 10 number per keyword
• Based on the last 90 days of exact searches
• Not used in the auction
• Tells you which of three parts to fix

Ad Rank (in every auction)

• Calculated fresh for each search
• Bid, live ad quality, thresholds, competition, context, assets
• Decides if your ad shows, where, and the price
• You see its effect in Impr. (Top) % and Impr. (Abs. Top) %

Many guides still quote an old formula: Ad Rank equals max CPC times Quality Score. Google's current Help pages do not describe Ad Rank that way. They list the six factors above, and a separate definition page says Quality Score is not used at auction time to determine Ad Rank.

How does Quality Score relate to cost per click?

Quality Score itself does not set your price, but the ad quality it reports does. Higher quality raises your Ad Rank at the same bid and lowers the threshold you must clear, so you usually pay less per click for the same position. Google states that higher quality ads typically cost less per click than lower quality ads (About ad quality).

Google's actual CPC page walks through a simplified auction. Five advertisers compete. The minimum Ad Rank to show above the results is 40, and the minimum to show below them is 8.

Ad Rank 80Top ad 1, pays just enough to beat 50

Ad Rank 50Top ad 2, pays just enough to clear the top threshold of 40

Ad Rank 30First ad below the results, pays just enough to beat 10

Ad Rank 10Second ad below the results, pays just enough to clear 8

Ad Rank 5Below the threshold of 8, does not show

Ad quality reaches your cost per click in three ways:

• Your Ad Rank. At the same bid, a more relevant ad and page give a higher Ad Rank. Google says a competitor with a higher bid can still rank below you if your keywords and ads are more relevant.
• Your threshold. Google's Ad Rank thresholds page says lower quality ads have higher thresholds. A higher threshold raises the least you can pay to show.
• The reserve price. If no rival clears its threshold, you pay the reserve price, which is your threshold rounded up to the next cent in the US. Low quality can make even an empty auction expensive. Google notes that with low quality ads, your actual CPC may sit close to your max CPC even when competition is low.

On manual bidding you are never charged more than your max CPC. Google lists automated bidding and bid adjustments as exceptions, so read our guide to Google Ads bidding strategies before you compare CPCs across strategies. For the full picture of what drives click prices, including budgets and overdelivery, see how much Google Ads costs.

Why do Performance Max and Shopping campaigns show no Quality Score?

Performance Max and Shopping campaigns show no Quality Score because Quality Score is a keyword rating, and these campaigns have no keywords to rate. Google's Quality Score documentation covers Search campaigns, where the score is reported per keyword.

• Performance Max finds searches through search themes and keywordless targeting (About Performance Max campaigns).
• Shopping ads use your Merchant Center product data, not keywords, to decide when to show (About Shopping ads).

Ad quality still counts in these campaigns. Google's Ad Rank definition says that when a search is not identical to an eligible Search keyword, the campaign or ad with the highest Ad Rank serves. You simply get no 1 to 10 warning light. Judge these campaigns on conversions, conversion value and the pages people land on. Our Performance Max guide covers the reports that replace Quality Score there.

What about AI Max for Search campaigns?

In a Search campaign with AI Max turned on, Quality Score still describes only the keywords you wrote. AI Max adds matches through broad match expansion and keywordless matching, and its final URL expansion can send the click to a different page on your site. Google labels those extra matches with an "AI Max" match type in the search terms report and shows an AI Max summary row in the keywords report (How AI Max works).

Your keyword scores say little about those added searches and pages. Check the pages AI Max picks in the Landing pages report, which now has a Selected by column, and use URL exclusions to keep traffic away from weak pages.

How do you improve Quality Score?

You improve Quality Score by fixing whichever component is rated Below average on the keywords that spend the most. Each component points to a different fix: ad text for expected CTR, ad group structure for ad relevance, and your website for landing page experience. Google's own improvement guide lists most of the fixes below; we added the ones we use in audits.

Work in this order, so effort goes where the money is. Google advises focusing on high-value areas rather than every low score.

1. Sort by cost. Add the Quality Score columns, filter to active keywords with impressions, and sort by Cost over the last 30 or 90 days.
2. Find the weak component. For each high-spend keyword with a Below average status, note which component it is. A keyword with three Average components has no major problems, per Google, even if its number looks modest.
3. Read the search terms first. If the searches behind the keyword do not fit your business, the problem is targeting, not copy. Our guide to Google Ads match types explains how each type widens or narrows the searches you buy.
4. Change one thing per ad group. Rewrite the ad, split the ad group or change the page, then write the date in a change log.
5. Re-check after several weeks. The ratings compare the last 90 days, so they move as new impressions come in. Use the historical columns segmented by day, and judge the change on conversions and cost per conversion, not on the score alone.

Two of Google's notes save wasted effort. The landing page does not need the word-for-word search phrase on it. And conversion rate does not change your landing page status, although it is a good proxy for whether the page works.

What does fixing a low Quality Score look like?

Here is an illustrative example, not a client result. An online store that sells cast iron cookware runs one ad group called "Cast iron skillets". Its ads talk about skillets, and every keyword sends people to the skillets collection page. These are the six keywords over the last 30 days:

Sorted by cost, the Dutch oven keyword comes first. It spent $420 with every component Below average. The fixes, in order:

1. Dutch ovens get their own ad group. Move the keyword, write an ad with "Enameled Dutch Oven" in the headlines, and point it to the Dutch oven collection. Google notes that moving a keyword into an ad group with new ad text can change its quality estimate, which is the point here.
2. The 12 inch searches get a 12 inch page. Create a "12 inch skillets" ad group whose ads link to a page filtered to that size, so the searched product is the first thing people see.
3. The ad says what people search. Add a headline such as "Pre-Seasoned and Ready to Cook" to the skillet ads, which addresses the Below average expected CTR on the pre-seasoned keyword.
4. Care kits move to an accessories ad group with its own ad and page, or get paused if they rarely sell through ads.
5. Recipe searches get blocked. Add "recipes" as a negative keyword. Our negative keywords guide has starter lists for this kind of research traffic.

Sort by cost$420 Dutch oven keyword first

Read the componentsAll three Below average

Fix that partNew ad group, ad and page

Log the dateOne change per ad group

Re-checkHist. columns by day, plus conversions

Notice what the store did not do. It did not raise bids to lift the score, because bids do not change ad quality. It did not chase a 10 on the healthy skillet keyword. And it did not judge success by the score. If the Dutch oven ad group now sells at a cost per sale the store can afford, the fix worked, whatever the number says.

Which Quality Score myths can you ignore?

Most Quality Score myths come from older versions of Google Ads or from guesswork. Google lists several of them itself. As of October 2026, here is what its Help Center says:

One factor does matter that many people forget: the device. Google takes the searcher's device into account when it calculates ad quality, so a page that works on a laptop but is slow or cramped on a phone costs you in the auction.

How often should you check Quality Score?

Check Quality Score once a month, as part of a wider account review, and act only on high-spend keywords with a Below average component. Daily checks add noise, because the ratings move slowly and Google tells advertisers not to treat the number as a KPI.

Look at it next to the metrics that pay the bills: conversions, cost per conversion and conversion value. A keyword with a 4 that sells at a profit is worth keeping. A keyword with an 8 that never converts is not. Our Google Ads audit checklist shows where the Quality Score check fits among the tracking, targeting and bidding checks that usually matter more.