In Google Ads, a Quality Score (QS) is a rating of how well your keyword is performing in a group consisting of other keywords, ads, and landing pages. Quality Scores don’t just affect your positioning but the cost per click you pay per keyword. For example, take a keyword with an average cost per click of $10. With a QS of 9/10, you could be bidding just $4 and still be number 1 but if you had a quality score of just 4/10, you might have to bid as much as $14 to beat the competition. Quality Score is an easily misunderstood concept that is very easy to fix and optimize. If your average score quality score by volume (not blended) was 5/10 and your spend was $1m, then optimizing it to get an 8/10 could equal a $250k budget reduction – or an extra $250k ($500k before optimization) that you can use to scale your business.
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What Affects Quality Score?
| PP Rank | Term | Impact On Quality Score |
| 1 | CTR | CTR for both the Ad and keyword combination is a critical factor in determining that the ad you’re showing and the keyword you’re targeting are relevant. On the other hand – in a pay-per-click world, ads that have lower click through rate represent less value to Google, hence the major impact on Cost Per Click and why you’ll pay a penalty for lower CTR. |
| 2 | Ad Relevance | How relevant is the text in your ad copy and the page the user is being sent to |
| 3 | Landing Page Experience | How good is the User Experience on the landing page |
Source: Google