You opened your keywords report and saw a column of 3s, 4s and 5s, or a row of "Below average" labels, next to words you are paying for. Now you are wondering whether that is why every click costs so much, whether the account needs to be rebuilt, and whether you should hire someone. The score on that screen is the Google Ads Quality Score, and it is more useful than it looks and less powerful than the number suggests. It is a diagnostic: a way to see which of your keywords has a weak ad, a weak page, or a weak match between the two. You can find your Quality Score in about ten minutes, pick the few keywords that deserve attention, and fix the one weak part of each. You do not need to chase a 10 on every keyword, and you do not need to touch a keyword that is already bringing in customers at a price you can afford.
Key Takeaways
Add the Quality Score columns to Search keywords, sort by cost, and work on the five keywords with the most spend and an Average or Below average rating.
Expected CTR points to the ad, ad relevance points to how your keywords are grouped and worded, and landing page experience points to the page people land on.
Judge each change by qualified calls, forms or sales and by cost per conversion, not by whether the number moved.
Google calls Quality Score a diagnostic, not a key performance indicator, so a profitable keyword with a middling score can stay as it is.
How do I see my Quality Score and find the keywords worth fixing?
Start in the account, not in a guide. Quality Score is reported for each keyword in your Search campaigns, and it hides in a column you may need to add yourself. Google says the Quality Score column can be turned off in new accounts until you add it manually. The steps below follow Google's instructions for checking Quality Score, so the menu names should match what you see.
- Open the keyword list: In Google Ads, go to Campaigns, then Audiences, keywords, and content, then Search keywords.
- Open the column menu: Select the Columns icon and choose Modify columns.
- Add the Quality Score fields: Under the Quality Score section, add Quality Score, Exp. CTR, Ad Relevance and Landing Page Exp.
- Add the money columns: From the other sections, add Cost, Conversions and Cost/conv., so every rating sits next to what the keyword costs and what it brings in.
- Sort by Cost: Click the Cost header so the keywords with the most spend come first.
- Mark the five that matter: Highlight the five costliest keywords whose ratings read Average or Below average.
Those five keywords are your worklist. A keyword that rarely shows and costs almost nothing can have the worst score in the account and still not be worth an hour of your time. A keyword that eats a large share of your budget with a Below average rating is where a small fix can matter.
There are also historical columns, labeled with "(hist.)", and you can segment the table by day to see when a rating changed. That helps when a score drops after you edited an ad or swapped a landing page.
What do the three ratings mean, and which one should I fix first?
Each rating compares you with other advertisers, so it helps to know what is being compared. Google's Quality Score guide describes the three components, and each is labeled Above average, Average or Below average. The comparison is against advertisers who showed ads for the same exact searches over the previous 90 days. That means a rating is a statement about your ad against competing ads, not a grade against a fixed standard.
| Rating | What Google says it measures | Where to look first |
|---|---|---|
| Expected CTR | How likely your ad is to be clicked when it shows | The ad text: offer, benefit, call to action |
| Ad relevance | How closely your ad matches the intent behind the search | The ad group: unrelated keywords sitting together |
| Landing page experience | How relevant and useful the page is to people who click | The page: match to the ad, speed, mobile, ease of use |
Fix the weakest rating on your costliest keyword first. If two ratings are weak, start with ad relevance. Tighter ad groups make your ads easier to write and your pages easier to match, so that fix tends to make the other two easier. If only landing page experience is low and your ad group already holds one tight theme, go straight to the page.
How do I fix each weak rating?
Google gives specific advice for each rating, and the advice is practical enough to apply on a small account without a consultant. The three sections below follow Google's own recommendations for each component. Work on one keyword group at a time, and write down what you changed and the date, so a later result has a cause you can name. Any change you make will take time to show, because the ratings reflect what happened on recent searches.
Ad relevance: make the ad match the search
When ad relevance is Average or Below average, Google recommends matching your ad language more directly to the search terms and splitting unrelated keywords into tighter ad groups. This is where a small account easily leaks, because it is easy to put every service in one ad group and write one general ad for all of it. A search for "emergency furnace repair" and a search for "furnace tune-up" come from two different moods, and one ad cannot answer both. Open the Search terms report for the keyword to see what people actually typed, then group keywords by theme and write an ad for each group that echoes the words people used.
Block searches that could never become customers while you are there. Our post on Google Ads negative keywords shows how to read that report and what to exclude.
Expected CTR: give the searcher a reason to click
When expected CTR is Average or Below average, Google recommends making the offer stronger, matching ad details to the keyword's intent, highlighting a distinctive benefit, testing relevant calls to action, and making the copy more specific. Name what you actually do, where, and the one thing that sets you apart, such as same-day visits or fixed pricing, as long as it is true and appears on your page. Advertising claims need to be truthful and supported, as the FTC's advertising guidance puts it, so do not promise an offer, price or result your page does not back up.
Google adds a caution worth keeping in mind: a more specific ad can get a lower click-through rate and a higher conversion rate. Fewer clicks from better-matched people can be a good trade. That is one more reason to read this rating next to Conversions and Cost/conv. instead of alone.
Landing page experience: make the page keep the ad's promise
When landing page experience is Average or Below average, Google recommends matching the page to the search and the ad, keeping the message consistent, making the site mobile-friendly, improving loading speed, and making the page easy to move around. The simplest fix comes first: stop sending a keyword about one service to a home page that talks about everything. Send it to the page for that service, and make the headline and first screen say what the ad said. We cover that step in building a landing page for Google Ads.
Then open the page on your phone, on mobile data, and tap through it. If it takes a long time to load, if the phone number is not tappable, or if the form is hard to finish with a thumb, fix that before you change a word of copy. Google also says the page does not need to repeat the keyword word for word. It needs to satisfy what the searcher came for, so write for the person and not for the match.
A page change can be a ten-minute edit or a real project, depending on how your site is built. If speed or mobile layout needs development work, plan for it as a project rather than a quick tweak.
What should I stop worrying about?
A lot of Quality Score advice makes the number sound like a score you have to win. It is not. Google describes it as a diagnostic tool and says it is not a key performance indicator. These are the habits to drop:
- Chasing a 10 on every keyword: Use the score to pick which keywords to look at, then judge the work by customers and cost per conversion.
- Looking for a fixed discount: There is no set price cut for a given score. Google says higher-quality ads can often have lower costs per click, and your own result depends on the auction you are in.
- Treating the displayed score as the auction: Google says the 1 to 10 number is not itself an input to the auction. What counts at auction time is quality signals measured for that search, which feed into Ad Rank alongside your bid, the competition, the search itself and the expected impact of assets.
- Changing match types to move the score: Google says the historical score reflects past exact-search impressions, so a match type change does not directly change it.
- Stuffing the keyword into the page: A page that reads awkwardly to make a keyword fit is worse for the visitor and does not help the rating.
- Pausing a keyword only because its score is low: If it brings qualified conversions at an acceptable cost, leave it alone.
Quality Score does not include your conversion rate as one of its three parts. Google says conversion rate can help you judge how a landing page is performing, but it does not directly set the displayed landing page rating. So, a page can convert well and still show Below average, and the reverse can happen too. When the two disagree, trust the money.
When is a low Quality Score worth fixing, and when is it not?
Use three questions. Does the keyword get meaningful spend? Does it lead to conversions worth paying for, such as booked jobs, quote requests or calls you can track? Is it a commercial search you would pay for even at a higher price? If the answer to all three is no, leave it. If the answer to any of them is yes and the rating is weak, fix it.
| What you see | What to do |
|---|---|
| High spend, Below average rating, few conversions | Fix the weakest rating first; this is the best use of an hour |
| High spend, Below average rating, good conversions at a fair cost | Leave the keyword running; test one small ad or page change when you have time |
| Low spend, Below average rating | Leave it, or pause it if it never converts |
| Good rating, high spend, no conversions | The score is not the problem; check the search terms and your conversion tracking |
That last row catches people out. A high score does not make traffic profitable. If a keyword is well matched and still brings nothing, look at who is searching, what the page asks them to do, and whether your calls and forms are being counted. Our posts on tracking phone calls from Google Ads and what a good website conversion rate looks like cover the measuring side. Without tracking, you cannot tell a low score that hurts you from a low score that does not matter.
How do I know a fix worked?
Give each change enough time to collect searches, then compare the same keyword before and after. Look at Conversions, Cost/conv. and the search terms behind the clicks, and look at the rating columns last. A rating moving from Below average to Average is a good sign, but the real test is more qualified calls and forms for the same spend.
Change one thing per keyword group at a time. If you rewrite the ad, swap the page and change the bids on the same day, you will not know which change did the work. Keep a short log with the date, the keyword group and what you changed. If a result looks worse after a change, you will know what to undo.
Budget decisions belong in the same loop. If you are still working out what Google Ads should cost you, our post on how much Google Ads costs gives a place to start, and Google's Keyword Planner can show you how much searching exists for the words you chose.
Can I do this myself, or should I hire help?
You can do the check yourself, and for a small account with a few campaigns you can often do the fixes too. Our post on running Google Ads yourself covers where the work gets hard. Often the right move is one focused repair, such as splitting one ad group, rewriting five ads and pointing one keyword at the right page, and not a rebuild or a long retainer. If the five-keyword worklist turns up one clear problem, fix it and stop there.
Outside help earns its fee in specific situations:
- Meaningful spend: A few percentage points of wasted budget add up when the monthly spend is large.
- Many campaigns or locations: The worklist gets too long to run on evenings and weekends.
- Poor or missing tracking: You cannot tell which keywords bring customers, so every fix is a guess.
- Phone-heavy or multi-step lead paths: Calls, forms and bookings all need to be counted.
- Pages that need development: Speed, mobile layout or a new landing page are web projects, not ad edits.
- The same wasted searches keep coming back: Someone has to review the search terms on a schedule.
What you pay a person for is diagnosis, the work itself, measurement and accountability. Nobody can promise you a score or a cost per click, and anyone who does is selling a number instead of results.
Check your Quality Score know-how
Pick an answer to begin.
1. Which keywords should you look at first in the Quality Score columns?
2. Your ad relevance rating is Below average on a keyword with real spend. What does Google recommend?
3. A keyword has a middling score but brings qualified calls at an acceptable cost. What should you do?
Frequently Asked Questions About google ads quality score
What is Google Ads Quality Score?
It is a 1 to 10 score for each keyword that Google shows as a diagnostic. It reflects three ratings: expected click-through rate, ad relevance and landing page experience.
Where do I see Quality Score in Google Ads?
Go to Search keywords, select Columns, choose Modify columns, and add Quality Score, Exp. CTR, Ad Relevance and Landing Page Exp. under the Quality Score section.
Does a higher Quality Score mean cheaper clicks?
Google says higher-quality ads can often have lower costs per click, but it does not tie a score to a fixed discount. Your own cost depends on the auction, your bid and your competition.
Is Quality Score the same as Ad Rank?
No. Google says the displayed Quality Score is not an input to the auction. Ad Rank uses quality signals at auction time, along with your bid, thresholds, competition, the search itself and the expected impact of assets.
How do I improve landing page experience?
Send each keyword to the page that matches it, keep the page's message consistent with the ad, make it work well on a phone, speed it up and make it easy to move around.
Should every keyword have a score of 10?
No. Use the score to decide where to look, and judge your work by qualified conversions, conversion value and cost per conversion.
Final Thoughts
Quality Score is a way to see which keyword has a weak ad, a weak match or a weak page. Add the columns, sort by cost, take the five keywords with the most spend and a weak rating, and fix the one part that is weak. Then watch qualified calls, forms and sales, not the number.
Done this way, a Google Ads account gets cleaner over time. Your ads say what people searched for, your pages keep the promise your ads make, and your budget goes toward the searches that bring in work.
If you would rather have someone run the check with you, Web Leveling can review your keywords, ads and landing pages and tell you which fixes are worth making and which are not. Our pay-per-click work starts with that kind of review, and if a single repair is all the account needs, we will say so. We work with small and medium businesses across the country and overseas. Send us your Search keywords report and ask what to fix first, and we will walk through it with you.
Terms
Google Ads words in this post
Tap a term to see what it means.
Quality Score. A 1 to 10 diagnostic score Google Ads shows for each keyword in Search campaigns.
Expected CTR. Google's rating of how likely your ad is to be clicked when it shows.
Ad relevance. Google's rating of how closely your ad matches the intent behind the search.
Landing page experience. Google's rating of how relevant and useful your page is to people who click the ad.
Ad Rank. The value Google uses to decide whether and where your ad shows, using your bid, quality signals at auction time and other factors.
Search terms report. The report that lists the actual searches that triggered your ads.
Cost per conversion. What you pay, on average, for each call, form or sale you count as a conversion.
