AdWords Help

Quality Score is a dynamic variable calculated for each of your keywords. It combines a variety of factors and measures how relevant your keyword is to your ad text and to a user's search query.

A Quality Score is calculated every time your keyword matches a search query—that is, every time your keyword has the potential to trigger an ad. Quality Score is used in several different ways, including influencing your keywords' actual cost-per-clicks (CPCs) and estimating the first page bids that you see in your account. It also partly determines if a keyword is eligible to enter the ad auction that occurs when a user enters a search query and, if it is, how high the ad will be ranked. In general, the higher your Quality Score, the lower your costs and the better your ad position.

Quality Score helps ensure that only the most relevant ads appear to users on Google and the Google Network. The AdWords system works best for everybody—advertisers, users, publishers, and Google too—when the ads we display match our users' needs as closely as possible. Relevant ads tend to earn more clicks, appear in a higher position, and bring you the most success.

The formula behind Quality Score varies depending on whether it's affecting ads on Google and the search network or ads on the content network.

I. Quality Score for Google and the Search Network

While we continue to refine our Quality Score formulas for Google and the search network, the core components remain more or less the same:

• The historical clickthrough rate (CTR) of the keyword and the matched ad on Google; note that CTR on the Google Network only ever impacts Quality Score on the Google Network—not on Google
• Your account history, which is measured by the CTR of all the ads and keywords in your account
• The historical CTR of the display URLs in the ad group
• The quality of your landing page
• The relevance of the keyword to the ads in its ad group
• The relevance of the keyword and the matched ad to the search query
• Your account's performance in the geographical region where the ad will be shown
• Other relevance factors

Note that there are slight variations to the Quality Score formula when it affects ad position and first page bid:

• For calculating a keyword-targeted ad's position, landing page quality is not a factor. Also, when calculating ad position on a search network placement, Quality Score considers the CTR on that particular search network partner in addition to CTR on Google.

• For calculating first page bid, Quality Score doesn't consider the matched ad or search query, since this estimate appears as a metric in your account and doesn't vary per search query.

II. Quality Score for the Content Network

The Quality Score for calculating a contextually targeted ad's eligibility to appear on a particular content site, as well as the ad's position on that site, consists of the following factors:

• The ad's past performance on this and similar sites
• The relevance of the ads and keywords in the ad group to the site
• The quality of your landing page
• Other relevance factors

The Quality Score for determining if a placement-targeted ad will appear on a particular site depends on the campaign's bidding option.

If the campaign uses cost-per-thousand-impressions (CPM) bidding, Quality Score is based on:

• The quality of your landing page

If the campaign uses cost-per-click (CPC) bidding, Quality Score is based on:

• The historical CTR of the ad on this and similar sites
• The quality of your landing page

Learn how to view and improve your keywords' Quality Scores.