When you purchase ads on Google, you’re competing against thousands of businesses for the same search traffic—and a single metric determines who wins. Your Quality Score affects where your ads appear, how much you pay per click, and whether Google shows your ads at all.
Quality Score is Google’s way of evaluating the relevance and overall quality of your keywords, ads, and landing pages. A higher score means better ad placement and lower costs. Here’s a breakdown of Google’s scoring metrics, plus key tactics business owners use to boost their Quality Score and drive more traffic to their websites.
What is a Quality Score on Google?
Quality Score is a metric Google Ads uses to measure the relevance and quality of your keywords, ads, and landing pages. A Google Ads Quality Score falls on a scale of 1 to 10. As an advertiser on Google, you can use your Quality Score to compare your ad and landing page quality to that of your competitors. You can find Quality Score information in your Google Ads account. While you have to pay for ad campaigns, you can set up an account on Google Ads for free.
Google’s own reporting suggests that a good Quality Score can improve your ad rank (high-scoring ads may appear higher on a search results page) and cost per click (high-quality ads may incur lower fees for advertisers). In some cases, your Quality Score factors into whether your Google Ads account can even run ads in the first place. A very low Quality Score in Google Ads indicates that customers feel misled by your ads, or that you’re pushing disreputable products and services. In this case, Google may not show your ads at all.
Components of Google Quality Score
Google’s Quality Score formula evaluates three metrics. All are linked to Google’s stated goal of providing highly relevant search results—both free and paid—to those who use its platform. Here are the three components that go into a Quality Score calculation:
1. Expected click-through rate (CTR)
Your expected CTR predicts whether users will click your ad—and Google rewards high CTR with better ad positions and lower costs per click. It calculates this based on Google Ads performance data from other campaigns in your ad group, plus similar ad campaigns from other businesses.
2. Ad relevance
Ad relevance measures how closely your ad copy matches the intent of the keyword and the user’s search. A highly relevant ad improves the user experience, which means that refining your ad text might improve Quality Score metrics.
3. Landing page relevance
Google wants landing pages to address a user’s search queries, so it tracks landing page performance with respect to content clarity, page load speed, and mobile friendliness. The more that your ads and landing pages align with search queries, the higher your Quality Score.
How to improve your Quality Score
- Conduct keyword research
- Write compelling ad copy to improve CTR
- Improve your visitors’ landing page experience
- Leverage ad extensions
- Add negative keywords to better reach your target audience
Your Quality Score is not set in stone. You can improve it by strategically optimizing your ad copy, your landing pages, and your targeted keywords. Here are five strategies:
1. Conduct keyword research
Boost both CTR and ad relevance by populating your ads with the most relevant keywords. Start by conducting thorough keyword research using tools like the Google Keyword Planner and Google Analytics.
Your Google Ads account has a Quality Score column that can help you with keyword organization and overall performance. Using this tool, you may spot ad groups with many different keywords that you can’t reasonably rank for with a single ad. You can split these keywords into multiple ad groups, with a matched ad for each keyword, or keyword cluster, that you’re hoping to rank for.
2. Write compelling ad copy to improve CTR
Google rewards ads that closely match search queries and generate higher CTR. You can improve performance in both areas by drafting relevant and original content that helps your ads stand out from the pack.
If you’re trying to rank for a specific keyword, include it directly in your ad’s headline and description. Make sure you use the keyword organically; cramming in a keyword to your ad copy could make your text seem unnatural. Low Quality Score keywords will suppress your ad visibility.
Use a diagnostic tool like Google’s Ad Preview or Ad Strength indicators to gauge the quality of your ads. Not only do these tools help you predict your CTR ad relevance, but they also show how your ad will look on desktop and mobile devices.
3. Improve your visitors’ landing page experience
When Google users click on your ad, they’re taken to your landing page. Because your Quality Score depends in part on landing page experience, you need to make sure that the page directly relates to your target keyword and your ad copy.
Page load speed also matters. Use Google’s PageSpeed Insights or Google Analytics to identify performance bottlenecks. Since so much web searching takes place on mobile devices, make sure to optimize all landing pages—as well as your entire website—for mobile.
4. Leverage ad extensions
Ad extensions expand your ads with additional information that gives users more reasons to click—directly boosting your Quality Score. These are optional pieces of information you can add to your Google Ads text to make them more useful and clickable. They expand your ad with additional links, contact details, offers, or features that can improve your ad placement. The most effective extensions for ecommerce businesses include:
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Sitelink extensions. These link to specific pages on your website (e.g., “Contact Us,” “Pricing,” “FAQ”).
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Callout extensions. These are short text snippets that highlight unique selling points (e.g., “Free Shipping,” “24/7 Support”).
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Price extensions. This ecommerce-focused extension lets you highlight specific products or services along with pricing and descriptions.
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App extensions. These let you provide a link for users to download your app from Apple’s App Store or Google Play.
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Call extensions. These produce a clickable phone number for your business directly. This particularly helps you optimize mobile search.
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Location extensions. These let you display your business address and a link to Google Maps.
The same guidelines apply to extensions as to your ads. Your extensions should organically incorporate target keywords and accurately represent the landing pages they lead to.
5. Add negative keywords to better reach your target audience
Negative keywords are those that you expressly do not want to rank for. For instance, a group of wedding musicians would like to rank for the keyword “wedding band,” but they don’t want their ads shown to people shopping for wedding rings. So they might make “wedding ring” a negative keyword.
Screening out negative keywords doesn’t just help you maximize your ad spend. It also boosts your Quality Score because it ensures your ads and landing pages really do align with a user’s search intent. You can list negative keywords in your Google Ads accounts. They can apply either to an entire ad group or to individual ads within that group.
Quality Score FAQ
What are the three components of the Quality Score?
Google looks at three things: how often people click your ads (expected CTR), whether your ad matches what they’re searching for (ad relevance), and whether your landing page delivers what you promised (landing page experience).
What is a good Quality Score?
Aim for a 10 out of 10—but don’t panic if you’re scoring 7 or 8. Broader campaigns naturally score lower than tightly focused ones, because they target more varied search intent. The real question: Is your score improving over time, and are your ads profitable at your current score? If yes, you’re on the right track.
How can I improve my Google Quality Score?
You can improve your Google Quality Score by optimizing your landing page, conducting keyword research, organically weaving keywords into your ad copy, and drafting original content to boost your click-through rate (CTR).
