Ad quality is an estimate of the experience that users have when they see your search ads and the quality of their experience once they reach your landing page. Our assessment of the quality of your ad is summarised in your Quality Score, which you can monitor in your Google Ads account.
Higher ad quality generally leads to better performance, including better ad positions and lower cost.
What your ad quality can affect
- Whether your ad can show: Google requires that ads meet a certain level of quality in order to be shown. To see why your ad might not be showing, you can use the keyword diagnosis tool.
- Where on the search results page your ad appears: To ensure people see high-quality ads higher on the search results page, Google considers ad quality in establishing your Ad Rank. Learn more about where your ad appears on Google search results
- Whether assets show: Some assets for example only show above search results, and must have a high enough ad quality to appear in such a high ad position.
- How much you pay per click: Higher quality ads typically cost less per click than lower quality ads. If your ads are low quality, you may find that your actual CPC is close to your maximum CPC even when there is low competition for the search terms that triggered your ad. When your ads do show, you'll never be charged more than your maximum CPC for a click (unless you use automated bidding), no matter how low your ad quality. Learn more about Understanding costs and payments
- How your ads perform: High quality ads and landing pages are more likely to lead to successful clicks and conversions. Learn more how to Evaluate the performance of your landing pages
What does not impact ad quality
These are few common misconceptions about what affects your ad quality during the ad auction:
- Bidding: The amount you bid may affect your Ad Rank, but it doesn’t impact the assessment of your ad quality.
Example
If your car engine has high efficiency, you need only little fuel to take you far. This is the same as Ad Rank, where good ad quality will increase the likelihood of a higher Ad Rank. Also, note that your Ad Rank is calculated each time your ad is eligible to appear and a second time when it competes in an auction. For more details, please refer to the Ad Rank article. - Account structure: Moving an ad group with the same ads and keywords to another campaign or account does not impact your ad quality.
Note: However, if you move a keyword to a new ad group that has new ad text, it can change your ad quality because that can affect user experience.
- Frequency of ads: How often your ads show is determined by your bids, budget and keyword competition, but it does not affect your ad quality.
- Conversions reported: Your reported conversions don't impact your ad quality.
How to gauge and improve your ad quality
Quality Score is a diagnostic tool that can help you identify ads with a lower user experience than average. This tool gives further insights on whether you should focus on improving your ad relevance, clickthrough rate or landing page experience.
Your Quality Score is shown on a scale of 1–10 based on estimates of your performance compared to other advertisers.
Note that while we provide this diagnostic score to help you identify which of your ads might need quality improvements, these scores are not inputs in the ad auction. Use Quality Score to diagnose low quality ads, rather than trying to optimise the 1–10 score you receive.
Learn more about using Quality Score to improve your performance
