Google Ads Quality Score: The Complete 2026 Guide

Quality Score is Google's rating of how relevant and useful your ad is to someone searching for your keyword. It directly affects two things that matter to every advertiser: how much you pay and where your ad appears. Understanding this metric is essential for any business running Google Ads campaigns.

Yet most business owners have never checked their Quality Scores—let alone optimised them.

What Is Quality Score?

Quality Score is a number from 1 to 10 assigned to each keyword in your Google Ads account. A score of 10 means Google considers your ad highly relevant to that search. A score of 1 means Google thinks you're showing the wrong ad to the wrong people.

This isn't just a vanity metric. Quality Score directly influences your Ad Rank, which determines:

• Whether your ad shows at all
• What position it appears in
• How much you pay per click

Higher Quality Scores mean lower costs and better positions. It's that straightforward.

The Three Components of Quality Score

Google calculates Quality Score based on three factors:

1. Expected Click-Through Rate (CTR)

How likely is someone to click your ad when they see it? Google predicts this based on your historical performance and compares it to other advertisers bidding on the same keyword.

How to improve it:

• Write compelling ad headlines that match search intent
• Include your keyword in the headline where natural
• Test multiple ad variations to find winners

2. Ad Relevance

Does your ad copy actually relate to the keyword? If someone searches "emergency plumber Perth" and your ad talks about bathroom renovations, that's a relevance problem.

How to improve it:

• Create tightly themed ad groups (10-15 keywords maximum)
• Write specific ads for each ad group
• Use the keyword in your ad copy naturally

3. Landing Page Experience

When someone clicks your ad, do they find what they're looking for? Google evaluates page load speed, mobile-friendliness, and whether your content matches the ad promise. This is why professional landing page design can dramatically improve your campaign performance.

How to improve it:

• Send traffic to specific, relevant pages—not your homepage
• Ensure fast load times (under 3 seconds)
• Include the keyword and related terms on the page
• Make contact information easy to find

Why Quality Score Matters for Your Budget

Here's where it gets interesting.

Google uses this formula to determine your actual cost per click:

Actual CPC = (Ad Rank of ad below you / Your Quality Score) + $0.01

Translation: Higher Quality Score = Lower cost per click.

A keyword with Quality Score 10 might cost you $2 per click. That same keyword with Quality Score 5 could cost $4 or more. Over hundreds of clicks per month, that difference adds up to thousands of dollars.

What's a Good Quality Score?

As a general guide:

Most accounts we audit have average scores between 5-6. There's almost always room for improvement.

Quick Wins to Improve Your Scores

This week:

• Check your Quality Scores in Google Ads (Keywords > Modify Columns > Quality Score)
• Identify any keywords scoring below 5
• Review ad copy for those keywords—does it directly address the search?

This month:

• Create dedicated landing pages for your highest-spend keywords
• Split large ad groups into smaller, more focused groups
• Test new ad variations with stronger calls to action

Ongoing:

• Monitor scores monthly and investigate any drops
• Pause keywords that consistently score below 4
• Add negative keywords to prevent irrelevant clicks

Common Quality Score Mistakes

These mistakes overlap significantly with the issues we cover in our guide to common Google Ads mistakes costing Perth businesses thousands.

Sending all traffic to your homepage Your homepage is designed for general visitors. Paid traffic should land on pages built specifically for their search intent.

Using the same ad for dozens of keywords Generic ads get generic (low) scores. Specific ads for specific keywords win.

Ignoring mobile experience More than 60% of searches happen on mobile. If your landing page isn't mobile-friendly, your Quality Score suffers.

Neglecting page speed Google explicitly considers load time. Use PageSpeed Insights to check your landing pages.

The Bigger Picture

Quality Score isn't something you optimise once and forget. It's an ongoing indicator of how well your ads match what people are searching for.

When your Quality Scores improve, everything improves: lower costs, better positions, more clicks from the same budget.

If you're running Google Ads and haven't looked at your Quality Scores recently, today's the day. Even small improvements can have a meaningful impact on your return on ad spend. For businesses looking to track these improvements over time, our real-time dashboards make it easy to monitor Quality Score trends alongside conversion data.

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