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Google Ads Quality Score
Quality Score is Google’s 1 to 10 grade of a keyword, built from expected click-through rate, ad relevance, and landing page experience. It changes what you pay and whether you are eligible. It is a diagnostic, not a goal.
About 590 US searches a month for “quality score google”. Updated October 4, 2026.
| Component | It is asking | The usual fix |
|---|---|---|
| Expected CTR | Will this ad get clicked for this query? | A headline that matches the query’s words |
| Ad relevance | Does the ad belong to this keyword? | Move the keyword into an ad group whose ads talk about it |
| Landing page experience | Does the page continue the ad? | Send the click to the page that offers that thing |
What the number is for
About 590 US searches a month are for Quality Score on Google, and 203 for the ads-account phrasing. The number is per keyword. A campaign does not have one Quality Score. Chasing a 10 on every keyword is how accounts get over-split.
A higher score lowers the CPC you pay for a given bid and helps you enter the auction. A keyword at 3 that converts is still a keyword you keep. A keyword at 8 that never converts is still waste.
Fix them in this order
Landing page first when the score says “below average” there: one page per theme, the query’s words on the page, a fast load, and a visible next step. Then ad relevance: the keyword’s theme has to be the ad group’s theme. Then expected CTR: headlines that say the thing the person typed.
The structure that makes relevance possible is on campaign structure. What the score does to the bill is on Google Ads cost.
What Quality Score will not tell you
It will not tell you that a query is the wrong customer. A relevant ad to a curious searcher can score well and lose money. The search terms report is the other half of the diagnosis.
That report, and the negatives it implies, live under fix Google Ads.
Questions
What is a good Quality Score?
7 and up means the three components are mostly doing their job. Below 5, one of them is below average and the CPC is paying for it. The score is a clue to which component, not a target to max out.
Why is Quality Score blank?
New keywords and keywords with almost no impressions often have no score yet. Google needs clicks and impressions before it will grade them. A blank is not a zero.
Does Quality Score apply to Performance Max?
The 1 to 10 keyword score is a Search concept. Performance Max has asset and audience diagnostics instead. Do not go looking for the column there.
Keep going
Put it in the account
Connect the ad account. Sprites reads it, drafts the change, and waits for your approval before anything spends.
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