Quality Score Components
Paid MediaAlso: Quality Score Breakdown · Ad Rank Components
Quick definition
Quality Score components are the three factors Google Ads uses to build your Quality Score: expected click-through rate (CTR), ad relevance, and landing page experience. Each is rated below average, average or above average and combined into the single 1-10 score shown at keyword level.
How it varies across Australia
Australian accounts we review most often lose points on landing page experience rather than ad relevance. Smaller advertisers frequently send paid traffic to homepage or generic category pages instead of a matched landing page, which drags the whole score down before the ad copy is even considered.
See acquisition performance benchmarks across Australian industries →The three components
How likely people are to click your ad for this keyword, based on past performance of similar ads.
How closely your ad copy matches the intent behind the keyword someone searched.
Whether the page you send traffic to is relevant, fast and easy to use.
What it actually means
Quality Score looks like a single number but it's actually a scoreboard for three different arguments happening at once. Expected click-through rate (CTR) asks whether people who see your ad for this keyword are likely to click it, based on historical performance of similar ads. Ad relevance asks whether your ad copy actually matches what the keyword implies someone wants. Landing page experience asks whether the page you send them to delivers on that implied promise, loads fast, and isn't stuffed with intrusive pop-ups.
Most advertisers treat the single 1-10 score as the target and miss that each component is a separate lever with a separate fix. A weak ad relevance rating means rewrite the ad. A weak landing page rating means fix the page, not the bidding. Confusing the two wastes weeks.
Quality Score also feeds directly into your CPC and Ad Rank, so it isn't cosmetic. Two advertisers bidding the same amount on the same keyword can pay meaningfully different CPCs depending on how their components stack up. It rewards relevance, not just budget.
Quality Score isn't one number you improve. It's three separate arguments you're either winning or losing.
How it shows up
The components show up in the Google Ads keyword table as three separate status columns you can add: Quality Score, Expected CTR, Ad Relevance and Landing Page Experience. Each one shows above average, average or below average. Below average on any single component is usually enough to drag the overall score down even if the other two are strong.
It also shows up indirectly in your CPC. If your CPCs are creeping up on keywords with steady conversion rate and no bid changes on your end, a components check often reveals one rating has slipped, usually landing page experience after a site redesign or a slower page load.
The Australian context
Landing page experience ratings are sensitive to load speed, and Australian sites hosted on overseas servers often show weaker Core Web Vitals for local visitors than the same page tests as in a US-based tool. If your Quality Score components look fine in a generic speed test but landing page experience still rates below average in Google Ads, check where your hosting actually sits relative to your Australian audience.
Where people get this wrong
Related terms
Common questions
What are the three components of Quality Score?
Expected click-through rate, ad relevance and landing page experience. Google rates each one below average, average or above average and combines them into the single 1-10 Quality Score shown at keyword level.
Which Quality Score component matters most?
None is weighted publicly as more important than the others, but landing page experience is the one most Australian advertisers neglect. It's also the one that requires development work rather than a copy change, so it tends to sit broken the longest.
Can I see the individual components in Google Ads?
Yes. Add the Quality Score, Expected CTR, Ad Relevance and Landing Page Experience columns to your keyword view. They display as separate ratings so you can diagnose which one is dragging the overall score down.
Does fixing one component guarantee a higher Quality Score?
It usually helps but not always immediately. Google recalculates using rolling historical data, so improvements take time to register. Fixing the weakest component consistently moves the needle more than tweaking a component already rated above average.
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About New Rebellion
New Rebellion is a marketing intelligence consultancy. We build tools, score Australian businesses on how their marketing actually performs, and publish Debrief every day. This dictionary is part of how we work in the open.
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