How do I improve a low Quality Score in Google Ads?

Quality Score is Google’s rating, from 1 to 10 for each keyword, of how relevant and useful your ad and landing page are to someone searching for it, compared with other advertisers’. Google names no score as low. Goldbeater reads 4 or under, below the middle of the scale, as low.

The score comes from three parts, each rated above average, average or below average against the other advertisers whose ads showed for exactly the same search over the last 90 days: expected clickthrough rate, ad relevance and landing page experience. Google says a part rated average or below average may be an opportunity to improve, so the parts tell you more than the number does.

Google calls the score a diagnostic tool. It isn’t an input in the ad auction, and Google says it shouldn’t be optimized or averaged with the rest of your data. What it summarizes does count: Ad Rank weighs your ad quality at every auction, an ad needs enough of it to show at all, and Google says higher quality ads typically cost less per click. A low quality ad may pay close to its maximum CPC even when there’s little competition for the search.

This guide is about a score that’s low now. For a score that fell, the Quality Score drop guide shows which part moved and when.

1. 01Go to Campaigns › Audiences, keywords, and content › Search keywords.
2. 02Select the columns icon above the table, then Modify columns, and open the Quality score section. Add Quality Score, Exp. CTR, Ad relevance and Landing page exp., then select Apply.
3. 03Set the date range to the last 30 days and sort by Quality Score, lowest first.
4. 04Read the keywords at 4 or lower that have Cost beside them, and note each one’s ad group and which parts read Below average. A low score on a keyword that spends nothing costs nothing.

A dash in the Quality Score column means there aren’t enough searches that exactly match the keyword for Google to score it. Paused keywords keep the scores they had when they last ran, so read the active ones.

Each part is fixed in a different place, and most are fixed for a whole ad group or page at once, so read the parts before you change anything.

Google’s advice for each part rated below average:

• Expected clickthrough rate below average. Google predicts how likely your ad is to be clicked for the keyword, as if the search matched it exactly, against every advertiser and with the ad’s position and assets taken out. It isn’t the CTR column. Make the offer more compelling and more specific, make sure the ad’s details match what the keyword is searched for, name a benefit of your own, such as free shipping, and use a call to action that leads into the page. Google notes that a more specific ad can draw fewer clicks at a higher conversion rate, so judge it by both.
• Ad relevance below average. Match the ad’s wording more directly to what people search. Where an ad group holds keywords one ad can’t answer, split it into ad groups around a theme each, with ads written for them.
• Landing page experience below average. Give people what they searched for: a click on an ad for washable outdoor rugs should land on washable outdoor rugs. Keep the ad’s message and offer on the page, make it easy to use on a phone, and make it load quickly. The search’s exact words needn’t be on the page. Google suggests conversion rate as a rough measure of a good page, though it doesn’t change the rating.

Two kinds of low score aren’t fixed by rewriting the ad group’s ads:

• One keyword its ad group’s ads don’t suit. Where the rest of the ad group rates well, rewriting its ads for the odd one would unfit the rest. Give that keyword an ad group of its own with an ad that uses its words, or pause it if it doesn’t earn its place.
• A competitor’s name. Someone searching a rival’s name wants the rival, so an ad for anyone else matches the search poorly and is clicked less, whatever it says. Judge those keywords by what their clicks bring: what a conversion costs through them, beside your other campaigns.

• Changing the keyword’s match type. The score is based on past impressions for searches that exactly match the keyword, so a match type doesn’t change it.
• Bidding more. A bid can raise your Ad Rank, but Google says it has no effect on how your ad quality is assessed.
• Moving an ad group to another campaign or account. With the same ads and keywords, its ad quality stays the same. A keyword moved to an ad group with different ads is another matter: it can change.
• More conversions. Google says the conversions you report don’t affect ad quality.

The parts are rated over the last 90 days, so a change shows in them gradually. A few weeks after one, add the (hist.) versions of the four columns and segment the table by week to see it. The Quality Score drop guide walks through reading them.

Every day Goldbeater reads every enabled keyword’s Quality Score, its three parts and its spend over the last 30 days, and raises each low score where it’s fixed:

• Keywords spending at a low score: keywords at 4 or lower that spent at least $20 in 30 days, gathered by ad group, each with its score, cost and three parts, and the fix for the part rated below average on the most spend. Medium from $200, or a thousandth of what the account spent where that’s more.
• Ads or a page rated below average on most of the spend: an ad group where keywords rated below average on expected clickthrough rate or ad relevance carry more than half the spend of its rated keywords, and a landing page where more than half the spend reaching it came from keywords rated below average on landing page experience, each on at least $20.
• One keyword its ad group outrates: a keyword at 1 to 3 that spent at least $20, in an ad group whose other rated spend goes mostly to keywords at 5 or more, with what it and the rest converted over 13 weeks. It offers to pause it without recommending it, since an ad group of its own may be the better answer.
• An ad group whose ads suit some keywords and not others: keywords rated average or above on ad relevance and keywords rated below average each spent at least $20, the well-rated ones most of it. The advice is Google’s: split out the keywords the ads don’t suit.
• Competitor keywords whose clicks don’t pay: a keyword naming a rival is left out of the others and judged by its cost per conversion over 13 weeks, against what your other campaigns typically pay.

None of them puts a dollar figure on a score, since nothing in the account says what a better one would save, and none drafts a change to your ads or pages, which are yours to write.

The finding is the sample table above, as Goldbeater reports it. Where one part is rated below average on most of an ad group’s spend, the finding is about that part, with what the ad group’s clicks bought beside its campaign’s:

The audit checklist has every Quality Score line with where to find it in Google Ads.

What is a good Quality Score in Google Ads?

Google names no target. A higher score means your ad and landing page are more relevant and useful to someone searching the keyword than other advertisers’ are. Read the three parts rather than the number: a part rated below average is where to work. Goldbeater treats 4 or lower as low.

Does a low Quality Score raise my cost per click?

The score itself isn’t used in the auction, but the ad quality it summarizes is. Google says higher quality ads typically cost less per click, and that a low quality ad may pay close to its maximum CPC even when there’s little competition.

What does landing page experience below average mean?

Google rates the page your ad sends people to as less relevant and useful to them than other advertisers’ pages for the same search. Send the click to a page about what was searched, keep the ad’s message on it, and make it quick to load and easy to use on a phone.

Why is expected CTR below average when my CTR looks fine?

Expected clickthrough rate is Google’s prediction for the keyword as if the search matched it exactly, compared with every advertiser’s and with the ad’s position and assets taken out. The CTR column is what your ad actually got, in the positions it showed in.

Will changing a keyword’s match type improve its Quality Score?

No. Google bases the score on past impressions for searches that exactly match the keyword. A broader match type can help a keyword that shows a dash get enough of those searches to be scored at all.