What is Quality Score?

Google Ads rates each keyword from 1 to 10 on three things: how often your ad gets clicked compared to what is expected, how closely the ad matches the keyword, and how useful the landing page is to someone who clicks it.

The rating matters because the ad auction is not decided by money alone. A higher rated ad can appear above a higher bid and can cost less per click. Improving relevance is usually cheaper than raising your bid.

It is a diagnostic, not a target. Chasing the number leads to odd decisions. Fix the mismatch underneath it, normally an ad group covering too many unrelated keywords or a landing page that does not repeat the promise in the ad, and the rating follows.