Quality Score Explained: Strategies for Improvement

What is Quality Score?

Quality Score is a 1-to-10 rating Google Ads assigns to each of your keywords, estimating how relevant and useful your ads and landing pages are to the people searching. It’s built from three components: your expected click-through rate, your ad relevance, and your landing page experience (Google Ads Help). A higher score signals to Google that your ad answers the search well, and Google rewards that with lower costs and better positions.

Key Takeaways

• Quality Score runs 1 to 10 at the keyword level and combines three factors: expected click-through rate, ad relevance, and landing page experience (Google Ads Help).
• Higher quality ads can lead to lower prices per click, because quality feeds directly into Ad Rank (Google Ads Help).
• Older WordStream analysis found each point above the average Quality Score of 5 cut cost per action by roughly 16% (WordStream, 2013).
• Quality Score is a diagnostic, not a goal. Fix the three components and the score follows.

Quality Score is best understood as a report card, not a dial you turn directly. You can’t raise it on its own; you raise it by making your ads more relevant, your click-through rate higher, and your landing pages better. Do that, and Google charges you less for the same position. The rest of this guide breaks down each component and the concrete moves that lift it.

The table below shows the three components Google scores and what each one measures.

Why does Quality Score matter?

Quality Score matters because it directly controls what you pay and where your ad shows. Google calculates Ad Rank, which decides your position, from your bid, the quality of your ad and landing page, and the context of the search (Google Ads Help). Because quality is part of that formula, a relevant ad can win a higher position than a competitor bidding more. Google states it plainly: higher quality ads can lead to lower prices per click.

The cost effect is large. Older WordStream analysis put hard numbers on it: every Quality Score point above the average of 5 reduced cost per action by about 16%, a perfect 10 saved roughly 50% versus an average advertiser, and a below-average score carried a penalty of up to 64% (WordStream, 2013). That study is over a decade old, so treat the exact percentages as illustrative rather than current, but the mechanism is still how the auction works.

Put that against today’s costs and the stakes are clear. With the average click running $5.42 across industries (WordStream, 2026), shaving even a fraction off your cost per click through better quality compounds across thousands of clicks. Quality Score is the closest thing in Google Ads to a discount you earn by doing the work well. Our guide to PPC tools covers the software that helps you spot which keywords are dragging your scores down.

What affects your Quality Score?

Your Quality Score is affected by three things Google measures and reports separately, and each maps to a fixable part of your account. Knowing which component is weak tells you where to work, so always check the per-component status in your keyword table before making changes.

1. Expected click-through rate. This predicts how often people will click your ad when it shows for a keyword. It’s driven by whether your ad speaks to the search. The average search ad earns a 6.64% click-through rate (WordStream, 2026), so that’s a rough bar to beat.
2. Ad relevance. This measures how closely your ad’s wording matches the meaning behind the keyword. Generic ads that try to cover many keywords at once score poorly here.
3. Landing page experience. This rates how relevant, useful, and fast the page behind the click is. A page that doesn’t deliver on the ad’s promise drags the whole keyword down.

Two account habits quietly hurt all three. Broad, loosely themed ad groups force one ad to serve many unrelated searches, which weakens relevance. And sending every ad to your homepage instead of a matched page weakens landing page experience. Tightening both is usually the fastest win.

How do you improve your Quality Score?

You improve your Quality Score by fixing the weakest of its three components, not by chasing the number itself. Start by checking each keyword’s component ratings (Google labels them “above average”, “average”, or “below average”) and work on whatever reads “below average” first.

To lift expected click-through rate, write ads that match what the searcher wants and include the keyword in the headline. Test multiple headlines so Google can favour the strongest, and make the value obvious in the first few words. Sharper ad copywriting is the lever here, and adding ad extensions gives people more reasons to click.

To lift ad relevance, build tightly themed ad groups. Group closely related keywords together and write ads specific to that small set, rather than one ad for a sprawling list. The closer the keyword, ad, and theme align, the higher this component scores.

To lift landing page experience, send clicks to a page built for that ad, not your homepage. Keep it fast, make the content match the ad’s promise, and clear away distractions. Our guide to landing page optimization covers the specifics, and because page experience also shapes ad placement, the work pays off twice.

How do you monitor Quality Score over time?

You monitor Quality Score by checking it regularly in your keyword table and reacting to drops rather than chasing a fixed target. Google updates the score continuously as it gathers data, so it moves as your click-through rate, ad relevance, and landing pages change. A score that slips is a signal that one of those three has weakened, usually after a competitor improved or your ads went stale.

Build a simple routine. Add the Quality Score column and the three component columns to your keyword view, and scan them on a set schedule, weekly for active campaigns. When a score falls, the component labels tell you where to look: a drop in ad relevance points to tired copy, while a drop in landing page experience points to a slow or off-target page.

Treat low scores as a queue, not an emergency. Sort by the keywords spending the most money with below-average components, since those are where better quality saves the most cash. Fixing the expensive, low-quality keywords first gives you the largest return for the least effort, and it keeps the work manageable rather than trying to perfect every keyword at once.