Quality Score
QS / quality score / keyword quality score
Quality Score is a 1 to 10 diagnostic number reported against each keyword, estimating how relevant your ad, keyword and landing page are. Both Google and Microsoft state plainly that the score itself is not used in the auction. Ad quality does affect what you pay. The number in your account does not.
Quality Score is the number most likely to be waved at you in a report, and the one most often misdescribed. It is reported from 1 to 10 against each keyword, and it is built from three parts: expected click-through rate, how closely the ad matches what the person searched, and how useful the page they land on is.
Here is the part that changes how you should read it. Google says Quality Score is not an input in the ad auction, and calls it a diagnostic tool to identify how ads that show for certain keywords affect the user experience. Microsoft says the same thing about its own version, and goes further: the score is an evaluation based on historical performance in past auctions, it is not used at auction time to determine ad rank, and it does not affect cost or spend. That matters, because a common pitch is that raising your Quality Score will lower what you pay per click. Both platforms contradict that as stated.
The distinction worth holding on to is between quality and the score. Quality does affect what you pay. Google lists the quality of your ads and landing page as one of the six things that decide Ad Rank, alongside your bid, the Ad Rank thresholds, how competitive the auction is, the context of the search, and the expected impact of your assets. What is not an auction input is the 1 to 10 number sitting in your account, which is a report card on what already happened.
It is also older than it looks. Google says the comparison runs against other advertisers whose ads showed for the exact same search over the last 90 days. Microsoft says its own score covers queries that matched keywords exactly in the last 30 days. So the two numbers are not measuring the same window, and neither is telling you about this morning.
In practice
A report shows a keyword at 4 out of 10 and a recommendation to pause it. Before pausing anything, the useful question is which of the three parts is weak. A poor landing page experience is a website problem. Poor ad relevance is a writing problem. Low expected click-through rate on a keyword nobody in your trade searches is a keyword problem. Three different fixes, three different budgets, one number hiding all of them.
Not the same as
- Ad Rank
- Ad Rank is the live calculation that decides whether and where your ad shows. Quality Score is a reported diagnostic.
- Your cost per click
- Microsoft states directly that the score does not affect cost or spend.
Why it matters to you
This is one of the few places where a platform has written down something that contradicts a common sales pitch. You can hold the claim and the documentation side by side. If improving the score is being sold as a way to cut your click costs, the thing being improved is worth asking about, because improving the underlying quality is real work with real value, and improving the number is not the same job.
What to ask or check
- 01Which of the three components is weak on our worst keywords?
- 02Is the fix a website change, an ad copy change, or a keyword change?
- 03If a lower cost per click is promised from a higher score, what is that based on?
What people get wrong
That raising Quality Score lowers your cost per click. Google says the score is not an input in the ad auction, and Microsoft says its equivalent is not used at auction time and does not affect cost or spend. Ad quality is an auction factor. The reported number is not.
Red flags
- A proposal that promises a lower cost per click by raising Quality Score.
- A report that shows the score without saying which of its three components is weak.
- A keyword recommended for pausing on the score alone.
Where you will see it
As a Quality Score column on the keyword table in Google Ads, and as quality score on the Keywords, Campaigns and Ad Groups tables in Microsoft Advertising.