Key facts
- Google names exactly three components that make up Quality Score: expected click through rate, ad relevance, and landing page experience, each rated separately as below average, average, or above average per keyword.
- Quality Score is measured on a 1 to 10 scale per keyword, not per campaign or account, so one weak keyword group can look nothing like another even within the same campaign.
- Landing page experience specifically evaluates page load speed, relevance to the ad and keyword, mobile usability, and how easy the page is to navigate, all judged against other advertisers targeting similar keywords.
- A low Quality Score directly raises how much you pay per click to hold the same ad position, since the Ad Rank formula uses Quality Score alongside your bid, meaning two advertisers bidding the same amount can pay very different prices.
- Quality Score is a diagnostic tool, not the metric to optimize directly; Google has stated it should be used to identify weak spots rather than chased as a score in itself.
Quality Score Is Really Three Separate Scores
Google Ads' Quality Score is not one single judgment; it is built from three named components, and each gets its own rating of below average, average, or above average for every keyword: expected click through rate, ad relevance, and landing page experience. A low overall score is really telling you one or more of these three specific things is weak.
Open the keyword status column in your account, or add the Quality Score, expected CTR, ad relevance, and landing page experience columns to your keyword view directly. Look at each keyword individually rather than the account as a whole, since Quality Score is calculated per keyword, and a strong keyword group can sit right next to a weak one within the same ad group.
Fixing the wrong component wastes effort. A keyword scoring below average purely on landing page experience will not improve from rewriting your ad copy, and one scoring below average on ad relevance will not improve from a faster landing page. Match the fix to the specific flagged component.
When Expected Click Through Rate Is The Problem
Expected click through rate estimates how likely your ad is to get clicked when it shows for that specific keyword, compared to other advertisers targeting the same or similar terms, regardless of ad position. A below average rating here usually means your ad text is not compelling enough for that particular search, or the keyword itself is too broad or loosely related to what the ad actually offers.
Review whether the keyword truly matches what a searcher typing that exact phrase wants, and whether your ad headline speaks directly to that specific intent rather than a generic version of your offer. Tightening match types and splitting overly broad ad groups into more tightly themed ones often improves this component specifically.
Ad extensions such as sitelinks, callouts, and structured snippets can also lift expected click through rate by giving searchers more reasons and more clickable surface area to engage with your ad in the auction.
When Ad Relevance Is The Problem
Ad relevance measures how closely your ad's actual message matches the intent behind the keyword it is triggered by. A below average rating here typically means the keyword and the ad copy in that ad group have drifted apart, often because the ad group holds too many loosely related keywords sharing one generic ad.
The direct fix is a tighter ad group structure: group closely related keywords together and write ad copy that speaks to that specific group's intent, ideally including the keyword's own language in the headline. A single-keyword ad group is the most extreme version of this fix and often produces the highest relevance scores, though it is more work to manage at scale.
If you are running several keyword themes under one ad group with one generic ad, splitting them into separate, tightly themed ad groups with their own matching ad copy is usually the highest-leverage change you can make here.
When Landing Page Experience Is The Problem
Landing page experience is Google's assessment of what happens after the click: page load speed, how relevant the page content is to the ad and keyword, mobile usability, and how transparent and easy to navigate the page is, all benchmarked against other advertisers in a similar space.
A below average rating here often means the ad sends traffic to a generic homepage instead of a page specifically about what the ad promised, or the page is slow, cluttered, or hard to use on a phone. Sending the click to a dedicated landing page that matches the ad's exact promise, and that loads quickly on mobile, is the direct fix.
This is also the component most tied to actual conversions, not just Quality Score, so improving it tends to pay off twice: a better Quality Score at a lower cost per click, and more of those clicks turning into real leads once they land on a page built for that specific search.
Related questions
Yes, indirectly. The Ad Rank formula, which decides both your ad position and how much you pay per click, factors in Quality Score alongside your bid. Two advertisers bidding the same amount can end up in very different positions and paying very different prices depending on their Quality Score for that keyword.
Sometimes, if the below average rating is on expected click through rate or ad relevance rather than landing page experience. Tightening ad group structure and rewriting ad copy to match keyword intent more closely can meaningfully lift those two components on their own, without touching the page the ad sends traffic to.
Not directly. Quality Score is meant as a diagnostic signal to show you where a keyword is weak, not a target metric to maximize for its own sake. A keyword converting well at a Quality Score of 6 or 7 does not necessarily need to be pushed to 10; focus on whichever specific component is genuinely below average and holding back real performance.
Quality Score is calculated per keyword, not per ad or campaign, because expected click through rate and ad relevance are judged against that specific keyword's intent and competitive field. A broader or less related keyword in the same ad group as a tightly matched one can score noticeably lower even though the ad text is identical.
It updates continuously but needs enough fresh click and impression data on the affected keywords to recalculate meaningfully, so changes typically take a few weeks of active traffic to show a clear shift rather than appearing instantly the day after you make an edit, especially on lower traffic keywords where fresh data accumulates more slowly.
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