Last Updated on July 28, 2026

Quality Score

The Quality Score is available at the keyword level and is a tool to determine the ads relevance to the keyword and the quality of the experience the landing page provides. A higher score means your ad and landing page are more relevant an useful to someone searching for your keyword, compared to other advertisers.

A score above 5 means your ads and landing pages are outperforming the average advertiser for that keyword. This means you will be paying less than average for the same position. The opposite is true if the score is below 5.

Quality score is calculated using 3 components:

  • Expected clickthrough rate (CTR): The likelihood that your ad will be clicked when shown.
  • Ad relevance: How closely your ad matches the intent behind a user’s search.
  • Landing page experience: How relevant and useful your landing page is to people who click your ad.

Each component is evaluated with a status of “Above average,” “Average,” or “Below average.” This evaluation is based on a comparison with other advertisers whose ads showed for the exact same keyword, over the last 90 days.

If a Keyword is now or has low-volume, it may not show a Quality Score.

Also note: don’t just chase a Quality Score of 10. That doesn’t actually mean it will perform better. The Quality Score is Google’s way of showing you whether things look relevant or not and sometimes this doesn’t translate to performance.

Quality Score - Expected CTR

How to Improve Expected CTR

Use Less Keywords (more themed keywords) in the Ad Group 

Relevancy of the keywords to each other is very important. If your ad is getting a lot of impressions because you have 20 keywords that cover a broad span of themes, but is rarely getting clicks because it wasn’t exactly what the searcher was looking for, the quality score will decrease.

Improve the Ad Relevance of Your Keywords

The better the ad text matches/implements the targeted keywords in the ad group, the more likely people are to click through your ads. Yes, there is overlap here between these two elements of quality score! Include keywords in headlines, descriptions, display URL, the CTA, and anywhere else you can think of!

A/B Test Ads

You can test different variations of an ad in an ad group. It could be helpful to test different headlines or descriptions. Or a different display path. Compare the ads and see which gets a higher CTR. Then pause the one that doesn’t perform as well.

Ad Extensions

Extensions offer additional information to the searcher that can be helpful in enticing them to click on your ad. They also take up “Google real estate” on Google’s results page. If the ad is bigger, people are more likely to be drawn to it compared to its competitors.

Search Terms Report

In the search terms report, it is important to look for irrelevant keywords that are costing the client money, but aren’t turning into conversions, and excluding those. On top of that, there could be keywords with a high number of impressions and a low CTR. Those are search terms to consider making negative as well because they are clearly not in line with what the searcher is really looking for.

Quality Score - Ad Relevance

Improve Ad Relevance

Ad relevance shows how well your ads match your keywords. 

Google suggests the following if your Ad relevance has a status of “Below average” or “Average”:

  • 1. Language: Match your ad text directly to your keywords’ search terms.
  • 2. Narrow Down Ad Groups: Check your ad groups for keywords that don’t work well together. Consider splitting these into multiple ad groups that better match user searches. For example, if your client sells lots of different shoes, you might split up “dress shoes” from “running shoes”, and even more narrow targeting, like brand, specific style, or name. Imagine you are the one searching on Google, what would you search, and what would you look for that would make you click?

Quality Score - Landing Page Experience

How to Improve Landing Page Experience

Once you’ve gotten people to your site, you need to give them a good experience so they will convert.

Google suggests working on the following if your Landing page experience has a status of “Below average” or “Average,”:

  • 1. Landing page content: the landing page should give people exactly what they searched for. For example: a search for “flannel shirts” should go to a page featuring flannel shirts, not any type of shirt.
  • 2. Messaging: Your ad and landing page should be consistent including having the same special offers and calls to action.
  • 3. Conversion Rate: CR does not impact your landing page experience score, however, Google suggests that it is a good metric to go by for yourself of how good a landing page is.
  • 4. Mobile Friendliness: People want to be able to navigate your landing page and website easily, and most people use mobile devices. Make sure your landing page is easy to use on a mobile device. Use the Mobile-Friendly Test as well as test it out yourself on your phone to see how well the page works. 
  • 5. Loading Speed: Loading speed is a huge factor in whether people will bounce or not. The faster your landing page loads, the more likely someone will stay long enough to convert.

Your Keyword does not need to be “word-for-word” on your landing page to have a good Landing Page Experience score. It’s best to focus on making your landing page a great experience for the user, and this includes using natural language over exact keyword matching.