What is Quality Score?

You’re probably familiar with the Quality Score shown at the keyword level in your Google Ads account. This is the specific Quality Score for individual keywords. Your Quality Scores significantly impact the cost and effectiveness of your paid search ads. 

Often, you can’t fix a Quality Score issue solely by using the keyword-level QS tool in the Google Ads interface. Everything you need to know about the Google Ads Quality Score will be covered in the following article.

What Is Quality Score?

Google evaluates the quality of your ad using a number known as Quality Score (QS). It’s Google’s assessment of the quality of your PPC ads and keywords. QS is a metric that rates the effectiveness of your ads, keywords, and landing pages on a scale from 1 to 10.

It shows how relevant your landing page and ad are to the user. This score indicates how well your ad matches potential customers’ needs and search intent, which can affect your ad’s performance.

Several factors determine your Quality Score, including:

  • CTR: This statistic predicts the frequency with which users will click on the ad when their search query contains your target keyword.

  • Ad Relevance: Ad relevance evaluates the degree to which the desired keyword and content of the ads correspond with the actual searches made by users.

  • Landing Page Experience: When determining landing page experience, Google considers account elements like mobile friendliness, relevant content, and quick page loads.

 Google can determine that your advertising is relevant and beneficial to users if more individuals who see them click on them. Google rewards you with lower prices and higher ad rankings as a result.

Calculating Your Quality Score

To evaluate how relevant the ads are to the search query and how likely it is to be clicked, Google employs a Quality Score (QS). Google compares your ad to competitors bidding on the same term and assigns a rating of “Below average,” “Average,” or “Above average” to each element. A higher grade means more points.

Weighting of Factors

While Google doesn’t officially confirm this, research suggests that expected CTR and landing page experience are more important than ad relevance in determining your QS.

The Formula

Your QS is calculated using the formula: 1 + (Expected CTR points) + (Landing Page Experience points) + (Ad Relevance points).

Good Quality Score

A good QS depends on the type of keyword you’re targeting. For branded keywords, aim for 9-10. For commercial intent keywords, aim for at least 8. For low-intent keywords, 6-7 is ideal.

Common Quality Score Misconceptions

There are some common misunderstandings about Quality Scores. First, changing the match type of a keyword doesn’t directly affect its Quality Score. Second, pausing or deleting ads or keywords doesn’t impact your Quality Score. Third, Quality Scores for search and display ads are separate and don’t affect each other. Finally, while higher ad positions can seem to improve Quality Scores, Google adjusts for this to prevent self-reinforcing effects.

To determine if your landing page and ad are relevant to users looking for your keyword, use Google Quality Score. It can help you determine how to improve the effectiveness of your ad.

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