Google Ads Quality Score: How to Check and Improve It in 2026

What is Quality Score in Google Ads?

Quality Score is a keyword-level diagnostic in Google Ads Search campaigns that rates your ad quality against other advertisers on a scale from 1 to 10. The higher the number, the better your keyword, ad and landing page fit each other and the searcher's intent.

The most common misunderstanding is that Quality Score is plugged directly into the auction. Google's help page is explicit: Quality Score is not an input in the ad auction. What the auction actually uses is Ad Rank, recalculated every time your ad is eligible to show. Ad Rank is determined by your bid, the quality of your ads and landing page, Ad Rank thresholds, the competitiveness of the auction, the context of the search, and the expected impact of your assets and ad formats.

Think of Quality Score as a thermometer rather than the fever itself. It doesn't set your price; it shows you where the problem is. Google also states that higher-quality ads can often lead to lower CPCs. So when a keyword scores 3 or 4, it's reasonable to assume the real-time quality assessment is dragging you down too, and you are paying more for the same position than a competitor with a better ad and page.

How is Quality Score calculated?

Quality Score comes from the combined performance of three components, each compared with advertisers whose ads showed for the exact same search over the last 90 days. Every component gets one of three statuses: Above average, Average or Below average. Google does not publish how the components are weighted, so treat any percentage weightings you see online as guesswork, not documentation.

One detail matters more than most people realize: the score is based on historical impressions for exact searches of your keyword. That means a broad match keyword can have a Quality Score even with no impressions of its own, as long as a corresponding exact match keyword in the same ad group had impressions in the last 90 days. Changing match types doesn't change the score itself, and a keyword with too few exact searches shows a dash ("—") instead of a number.

Where do you find Quality Score in Google Ads?

Quality Score is not shown by default; you add it as a column in the Keywords report. As of September 2026 the steps are as follows (Google renames menus fairly often, so labels may differ slightly in your account):

1. Open Keywords In the left navigation, go to Campaigns, then Keywords, and pick a Search campaign or view all.
2. Click the columns icon In the upper-right corner of the table, click the columns icon to open Modify columns for keywords.
3. Add the Quality Score section Open Quality Score and tick Quality Score, Exp. CTR, Ad Relevance and Landing Page Exp.
4. Add the historical versions Quality Score (hist.) and the "(hist.)" component columns show scores for the date range you select. Click Apply.
5. Segment by day Segmenting the table by day shows exactly when a score moved, so you can tie it to a specific change.

What is a good Quality Score in Google Ads?

Google doesn't define a "good" threshold; in practice, 7 or higher on the keywords that take most of your spend is a sensible target for an online store. The 7+ figure is a practitioners' working rule for prioritization, not an official benchmark. What you're really checking for is whether any component is rated Below average; the overall score is just a summary.

Chasing 10/10 on everything is usually wasted effort. Competitor brand terms, very broad category words like "shoes", and searches your product only partly matches will naturally score low. If they bring profitable orders, keep them. Make the call on spend and cost per conversion, not on the score alone. If you need a refresher on which metrics should drive those decisions, our ad performance KPI guide covers them.

Which keywords should you fix first? A worked example

The table below is a hypothetical footwear store; the numbers illustrate the decision logic and are not real account data.

The rule is simple: start with the row where spend × number of weak components is highest. Lifting a $200 competitor term from 3 to 5 is trivial next to lifting a $4,200 core category keyword from 4 to 7. For the full picture beyond Quality Score, see our Google Ads optimization guide.

How do you improve Quality Score? Component by component

Find the component rated Below average and fix only that one first. Changing all three at once muddies the data and makes it impossible to see what worked.

Ad relevance: narrow each ad group to one intent

In ecommerce, poor ad relevance almost always comes from overstuffed ad groups. Google's own advice is to group keywords into themes based on your products, services or other categories, and to split ad groups whose keywords are too different to share one ad.

• Give each ad group one category intent: "women's leather ankle boots" and "women's snow boots" deserve separate groups.
• Use the keyword, or a very close variant, in several of your responsive search ad headlines so the ad mirrors the search.
• Review the search terms report and add negatives for queries that break the intent, such as "free", "DIY" or "repair" for a store that sells new products.

Expected CTR: be the strongest offer on the results page

Expected CTR is a prediction of how often your ad will be clicked compared with competitors on the same search. Google recommends making the offer more compelling, highlighting what sets you apart and using action-oriented language such as Buy, Order, Browse or Find. For an online store, that differentiator is usually shipping, returns or price.

• Put measurable advantages in headlines: "Free shipping over $50", "Free 30-day returns", "Ships same day".
• Add price, promotion and sitelink assets; a bigger ad footprint gives searchers more reasons to click.
• Write genuinely different headlines. Responsive search ads accept up to 15 headlines and 4 descriptions, and Google recommends providing as many unique ones as you can.

Landing page experience: send clicks to the category, not the homepage

This is the biggest lever for online stores. Sending someone who searched "women's leather ankle boots" to your homepage asks them to search a second time. Google's guidance is to give people what they're looking for, keep the ad's message consistent on the page, make it mobile-friendly and keep it fast.

• Set the final URL to the matching category or a pre-filtered collection (for example /womens-boots?material=leather).
• Make sure the searched product type is visible above the fold, and that sold-out items don't fill the first rows.
• Repeat the discount or shipping promise from the ad on the page itself.
• Pop-ups that cover the page on mobile and slow load times pull this component down; test on a real phone, not just desktop.

Is Ad Strength the same as Quality Score?

No. Ad Strength rates the variety of assets in a responsive search ad; Quality Score measures three components at the keyword level. Google states plainly that Ad Strength is a feedback tool for asset diversity and is not used to calculate Ad Rank, Quality Score or auction wins, and that it doesn't directly influence serving eligibility.

Ad Strength still helps indirectly: more distinct headlines give the system more combinations to match each search, which can lift CTR and, over time, expected CTR. Just don't pad an ad with near-duplicate headlines to reach "Excellent"; write your real advantages from different angles instead.

Does Quality Score matter in Performance Max and AI Max?

Quality Score is tied to keywords, so where there are no keywords, there is no score. Performance Max doesn't use keyword targeting and therefore has no Quality Score column. In Search campaigns with AI Max turned on, traffic matched beyond your keyword list appears in two total rows at the bottom of the Keywords report, "Total: AI Max expanded matches" and "Total: AI Max landing page matches", rather than against individual keywords.

That doesn't make ad and page quality irrelevant. Ad and landing page quality feed into Ad Rank for every campaign type; Performance Max just doesn't summarize it as one number. Speeding up category pages and keeping ad messaging consistent with the page helps PMax and AI Max traffic too. For PMax, the product feed plays a similar role to ad copy, which we cover in shopping feed optimization. And because Smart Bidding sets bids per auction, Quality Score work and bid strategy choice go hand in hand; see Google Ads bidding strategies.

In practice, if most of your spend has shifted to Performance Max, stop checking Quality Score weekly across the board and focus on the high-spend, non-brand category keywords still running in Search. If you want Google Ads, GA4 and store revenue side by side, Marpany's ad performance view makes it easier to see which campaign type is actually driving profitable sales.

What should you do this week?

Done in the right order, Quality Score work shows up clearly in the historical columns. Run through this list once, then track the change with day segmentation.

• Add Quality Score, the three components and the "(hist.)" columns to the Keywords report.
• Sort by last-30-day spend and take the top 20 keywords as your working list.
• Note which component is Below average for each; keep dash keywords in a separate list.
• Weak landing page: change the final URL to the matching category or filtered collection.
• Weak ad relevance: split the ad group and add the keyword to headlines.
• Weak expected CTR: add shipping, returns and price advantages to headlines, plus price and promotion assets.
• Log the date of every change and compare the historical columns 2–4 weeks later.

If you're not sure where to start, Marpany's quick suggestions surface high-spend, underperforming areas so you can build that first list faster.