Quality Score is a 1 to 10 rating that Google Ads gives each of your keywords to show how your ads and landing pages compare with those of other advertisers. It is built from three components: expected click-through rate, ad relevance and landing page experience. You raise it by fixing the weakest component, not by chasing the number itself. This guide shows you where to find the score, what drives it and the order in which to fix things.
TL;DR
- Quality Score is a diagnostic on a 1 to 10 scale that compares your ad quality with other advertisers, and it is not an input in the ad auction.
- It has three parts: expected click-through rate, ad relevance and landing page experience. Work on whichever is rated below average first.
- Add the four Quality Score columns to your keyword table, then filter for the lowest-scoring keywords and fix those first.
- Tight keyword themes, 3 to 5 ads per ad group and a landing page that matches the search do most of the work.
- Judge success by the component ratings and business results (leads, cost per lead, revenue), not by the single number.
Table of Contents
- What Quality Score actually is
- Does Quality Score affect what you pay?
- The three components and what each one tells you
- How to check your Quality Score
- How to improve expected click-through rate
- How to improve ad relevance
- How to improve landing page experience
- A fix-in-order workflow
- What is a “good” Quality Score?
- Our perspective
- Get a second pair of eyes on your account
- Common mistakes that keep scores low
- FAQ
- Sources
What Quality Score actually is
Google describes Quality Score as a diagnostic tool. It measures how your ad quality compares with other advertisers, on a scale of 1 to 10, and a higher score suggests your ad and landing page are more relevant and useful to people searching than those of competing advertisers.
Two details change how you should read it.
First, the score is reported at the keyword level. Two keywords in the same ad group can sit at 3 and 9, and that gap usually tells you something specific: the 3 keyword is probably a poor fit for the ads or the page it points to.
Second, the number is a summary, not a dial. Google’s own guidance says the component columns are far more important than the 1 to 10 number and should be read alongside business-critical metrics. A 6 with strong conversions beats a 9 with no sales.
Does Quality Score affect what you pay?
This is the most misunderstood point in the topic, and a lot of older advice gets it wrong.
Google states that Quality Score is not an input in the ad auction. The auction works out quality at the moment of each search, and a Google whitepaper explains that this calculation considers things such as the exact query, device, location and time of day, none of which the 1 to 10 number captures.
Ad Rank, the value that decides whether and where your ad shows, is influenced by bids, Ad Rank thresholds, auction competitiveness, search context and ad assets.
So why bother? Because the three things Quality Score reports on, how likely people are to click, how well the ad matches the search and how good the page is after the click, are the same things that make an auction-time quality assessment favorable. Improving them tends to help the real auction and your conversion rate, even though the score itself is not what Google plugs into the formula. Treat it as a smoke detector: useful for pointing at the problem, not the fire.
The three components and what each one tells you
Google assesses each component by comparing you with other advertisers whose ads showed for the same searches over the last 90 days. Each component is rated above average, average or below average.
| Component | What it asks | Typical cause of a weak rating |
|---|---|---|
| Expected click-through rate | Are people likely to click your ad for this keyword? | Generic headlines, no clear offer, keyword too broad |
| Ad relevance | Does the ad match what the person searched? | Mixed themes in one ad group, ad copy that never mentions the keyword’s topic |
| Landing page experience | Is the page useful and relevant to that search? | Page about something else, slow or hard to use on a phone, vague content |
The table matters because each weak rating points to a different fix. Rewriting ads will not repair a bad landing page, and rebuilding the page will not fix a keyword that is simply too broad.
How to check your Quality Score
You do not need a third-party checker. The data is inside your account.
- Open your Google Ads account and go to the Campaigns menu, then the Keywords report.
- Add the columns for Quality Score, Landing Page Exp., Exp. CTR and Ad Relevance to the table.
- Filter by Quality Score. Google suggests looking at keywords with low scores, such as under 3, and prioritizing improvements there.
- Sort the remaining keywords by spend, so you fix expensive problems before cheap ones.
This also answers the common question of how to check a landing page’s Quality Score. There is no separate page score. Landing page experience is one of the three components, and its rating appears in the “Landing Page Exp.” column for the keywords that send traffic to that page.
Keep a note of the ratings before you change anything. Google advises tracking historical quality ratings as you make changes, so a screenshot or export of the starting point makes your later comparison honest.
How to improve expected click-through rate
Expected CTR is Google’s estimate of how likely your ad is to be clicked when this keyword triggers it. A below-average rating usually means your ad looks like everyone else’s, or it appears for searches it was never written for.
What tends to help:
- Lead with the searcher’s words. If the keyword is “emergency plumber Laval”, the headline should say so, not “Quality Plumbing Services”.
- State a concrete reason to click. A specific offer, a service area, a response time or a free estimate gives the ad something the next one does not.
- Give the system options. Google recommends 3 to 5 ads per ad group so it can show messaging that suits a person’s context. Write them to differ in angle, not just in one word.
- Prune the keyword list. Broad keywords pull in loosely related searches, and those searchers rarely click. Our write-up on match types and wasted spend walks through how to tighten this without starving a campaign of volume.
How to improve ad relevance
Ad relevance is about the match between the keyword, the ad and the search. Google’s advice is plain: make sure your keywords are relevant to the product or service you offer. Its example is an advertiser who should not show ads for floor waxing to people looking for hair waxing salons.
The practical fix is structure. Split large ad groups into small themes, ideally one product or service and its close variations per group. Then write ads that reflect that theme.
A Montreal example: a renovation company that groups “kitchen renovation”, “bathroom renovation” and “basement finishing” into one ad group has to write one vague ad for all three. Three ad groups let each ad speak to one job, and the relevance rating usually follows. The same thinking applies to the words on your site, which is why we also cover using keywords properly in your content.
A few related habits:
- Add negative keywords for searches you do not want, so irrelevant queries stop diluting the group.
- Use the ad’s headlines to reflect the keyword’s topic, and the description to add the offer.
- Do not stuff the keyword in mechanically. If the ad reads awkwardly, the click rate will drop and you will have fixed one component by breaking another.
How to improve landing page experience
This component is where many small businesses lose the most, because the ad account and the website are managed by different people, or by nobody.
Start with one question: if someone clicks this ad, does the page they land on answer what they just searched? Sending every keyword to the home page is the most common mistake. Send each ad group to the page that covers that exact service.
Then check the basics of a useful page:
- Clear match. The headline echoes the search, and the first screen shows what you offer and in which area.
- Works on a phone. Many searches happen on mobile. Tap targets, readable text and a visible phone number or form matter.
- Loads fast. Test the page on a mobile connection, not just your office Wi-Fi.
- Real content. Specifics about the service, process, pricing approach and proof (reviews, case examples) beat a thin page built only to catch clicks.
- Easy next step. One obvious action, such as a call or a form, with no maze in between.
- Bilingual where it counts. In Quebec, a visitor who searched in French and lands on an English-only page is likely to leave. Match the page language to the search language.
These same improvements lift conversion rate, which is where the money is. Our practical guide to increasing website conversions covers the page-level work in more depth.
A fix-in-order workflow
If you are staring at an account full of 4s and 5s, do not try to repair everything at once. Work in this order.
- Export the keyword report with all four Quality Score columns and your spend.
- Pause or restructure keywords that are both costly and below average on relevance. If a keyword has no honest connection to what you sell, pausing is better than rewriting.
- Rebuild the ad groups around themes, then write 3 to 5 ads per group.
- Match each group to a specific landing page, and fix the page where the landing page rating is below average.
- Review the components after your changes have had time to collect data. Because ratings compare you with other advertisers over a 90-day window, expect them to move gradually, not overnight.
- Compare against business metrics: conversions, cost per conversion and lead quality.
One caution from Google itself: focus on long-term performance goals and user experience rather than trying to force the number up. The same document notes that even with a score of 8, 9 or 10 there may still be room to improve results through the components or other performance metrics.
What is a “good” Quality Score?
Higher is better, and a 7 or more usually signals that the keyword, ad and page work together. But a benchmark by itself is not a goal. A brand-name keyword will often score high with little effort, while a competitive, high-intent term may sit lower and still be your most profitable.
A better yardstick is this: are the keywords that bring you real leads rated average or above on all three components? If yes, you are in decent shape. If your best converters are rated below average, there is likely cheap upside in fixing them. Our note on what to expect in month one of small-business PPC explains why early data should drive these decisions rather than the first numbers you see.
Our perspective
We look at Quality Score as a conversation starter with the account, not a trophy. When we audit a Google Ads account, the score tells us which keywords to open first. The real work is in what sits behind it: how the ad groups are built, whether each ad says something distinct, and whether the landing page earns the click it just received.
What we see most often with small and mid-sized businesses is a mismatch between the ad budget and the website. Money is spent to bring people to a page that was never designed for that search. That is why we treat Google Ads and web development as one job. Fixing the page often does more for results than another round of bid changes.
Our approach is to tie every change to a business outcome: qualified leads, cost per lead and revenue. Courimo is a certified Google Partner, and our own claim is that this measurable focus is what sets us apart. We also publish how we work, so you know what you are paying for and who to call, with a guaranteed response within 24 hours.
If your account has a wall of low scores and you are not sure where to start, begin with your three most expensive keywords. Fix their structure, their ads and their pages. That small exercise usually teaches you more than any checker.
Ruthwik
Get a second pair of eyes on your account
If you would rather not rebuild ad groups and landing pages yourself, our team can review your account and show you where the weakest components are costing you leads. We run Google Ads campaigns for businesses across Canada, and for local companies we also work from Montreal through our PPC services.
Tell us what you sell, which cities you serve and what a new customer is worth to you. We will start from those numbers, not from the Quality Score.
Common mistakes that keep scores low
- One ad group for everything. It forces generic ads and makes relevance harder to earn.
- Everything pointing at the home page. The landing page rating suffers and so do conversions.
- Chasing the number. Editing ads only to nudge a score can reduce click-through and sales.
- Ignoring the components. The overall number hides which of the three needs work.
- Judging too early. New keywords have little history, and the comparison window is long, so give changes time and watch the trend.
- Letting search terms run wild. Review the search terms report and add negatives regularly.
- Forgetting new campaign types. If you also run automated formats, creative and asset quality matter in the same way. Our piece on Performance Max strategy covers that side.
FAQ
Is Quality Score a ranking factor in Google Ads?
No. Google says Quality Score is a diagnostic and not an input in the ad auction. The auction uses real-time signals, including the query, device and location. The three components it reports on are still worth improving because they describe ad and page quality.
How do I check my Quality Score?
Go to the keyword report under Campaigns and add the Quality Score, Landing Page Exp., Exp. CTR and Ad Relevance columns. Filter for the lowest scores and sort by spend. There is no separate score for a landing page: its rating is the Landing Page Exp. column.
What is the fastest way to improve Quality Score?
Find the keywords with the lowest ratings and the highest spend, then fix the component that is below average. That usually means splitting broad ad groups into tighter themes, writing 3 to 5 distinct ads per group and pointing each group to the page that answers the search best.
Should I aim for a Quality Score of 10?
Not as a goal in itself. Google advises focusing on long-term performance and user experience, and the component columns matter more than the single number. Aim for average or better components on the keywords that bring you customers.
Sources
- About Quality Score for Search campaigns, Google Ads Help
- Improve your keywords for the Search Network, Google Ads Help
- Connect ad quality to better performance, Google Ads Help
- About Ad Rank, Google Ads Help
- Settling the (Quality) Score, Google whitepaper
