Quality Score
Paid MediaAlso: QS · Google Ads Quality Score
Quick definition
Quality Score is Google Ads' 1-10 rating of how relevant and useful your keyword, ad and landing page are to someone searching. A higher score means Google shows your ad more often at a lower cost. It is built from three components: expected click-through rate, ad relevance, and landing page experience.
How it varies across Australia
Across Australian Google Ads accounts, most keywords cluster in the middle of the scale. Scores below five on high-spend keywords are common and almost always fixable. The biggest gains come from improving landing page experience, which is the component most advertisers ignore.
See acquisition performance patterns across Australian industries →The three components Google measures
Google's prediction of how often your ad gets clicked when shown for this keyword, relative to other ads.
Above average, average, or below averageHow closely your ad copy matches the intent of someone searching the keyword.
Above average, average, or below averageHow useful, fast and relevant your landing page is to the person who clicks.
Above average, average, or below averageWhat it actually means
Quality Score is a signal, not a lever. You can't lift it by tweaking the score itself. You lift it by making your ads and landing pages genuinely more relevant to the person who typed the search.
The score is Google's way of aligning incentives. Google makes money when people click ads. People click ads when the ad matches what they searched and the landing page delivers what the ad promised. Quality Score rewards advertisers who close that loop and punishes those who don't.
In practice, the score affects two things. First, Ad Rank, which determines where your ad appears relative to competitors. Second, cost per click (CPC). A high-scoring ad can outrank a competitor bidding more money. A low-scoring ad costs more for the same position. That's the core trade: relevance for efficiency.
Google reports Quality Score at the keyword level on a 1-10 scale, and each of the three components as above average, average, or below average. The diagnostic value is in the components, not the total. A score of six with landing page experience flagged as below average tells you exactly where to put the work.
Quality Score is Google telling you, in a number, how much it trusts that you're sending searchers somewhere worth going.
How to calculate it
Quality Score = weighted combination of expected CTR, ad relevance and landing page experience, rated 1-10
Worked example. Your keyword 'Sydney accountant' has expected CTR rated above average, ad relevance rated average, and landing page experience rated below average. Google weights landing page experience heavily. The resulting Quality Score is 5. Fix the landing page to match the ad promise and pass Core Web Vitals, and the same keyword can move to 7 or 8 without changing the bid.
The Australian context
Australian advertisers in competitive categories like finance, legal and healthcare often assume their Quality Scores are constrained by industry norms. In practice, the constraint is usually page speed and mobile experience. Australian sites load more slowly for Australian users when assets are served from US infrastructure, which directly hurts landing page experience ratings. Hosting or caching landing pages in Australia is the fastest fix many Sydney and Melbourne advertisers overlook.
Where people get this wrong
Related terms
Common questions
What is a good Quality Score in Google Ads?
Seven or above is a reasonable target for most keywords. Scores below five on high-spend terms are costing you money in higher CPCs and lower positions. A score of ten is possible but rare outside of branded keywords where the match between search, ad and page is near-perfect.
Does Quality Score directly affect how much I pay per click?
Yes. Google uses Quality Score as part of Ad Rank, which determines both your position and your actual CPC. A higher score can result in a lower CPC for the same position, or a higher position for the same bid. The relationship isn't linear but the direction is consistent.
How long does it take for Quality Score to improve after changes?
Google updates Quality Score based on accumulating data. Small accounts can take two to four weeks to see movement after meaningful changes to ads or landing pages. High-volume keywords update faster because the data accumulates quicker.
Should I delete low Quality Score keywords?
Not automatically. Check the three components first. A low score on a commercially valuable keyword is worth fixing, not deleting. Delete if the keyword is irrelevant to your offer or if the volume is so low that Google has no data to score it properly.
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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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