Quality Score in Google Ads: What Actually Moves It on a Client Account

Quality Score moves when expected click-through rate, ad relevance and landing page experience improve for a specific keyword and search intent. On a client account, the practical answer to how to improve quality score is to find the weak component, trace the path from query to ad to page, and fix the mismatch without sacrificing qualified conversions.

Do not treat the number as a performance target. A higher score is useful only when the changes behind it also bring the right people to the right offer.

Quality Score is a diagnostic, not a target

Google reports Quality Score at the keyword level on a scale from 1 to 10. It combines three diagnostic components:

Component	What it helps diagnose	Where to look first
Expected click-through rate	Whether the ad is likely to earn a click when the keyword triggers it	Search intent, search terms, headline clarity and offer fit
Ad relevance	How closely the ad matches the meaning behind the search	Keyword grouping, ad copy and the intent assigned to the ad group
Landing page experience	Whether the page is relevant and useful after the click	Message match, offer coverage, page clarity, mobile usability and speed

Google can label each component as below average, average or above average compared with other advertisers showing for the same keyword. That breakdown matters more than the combined score because it tells you where the problem sits.

Quality Score is based on historical performance. It is not the number Google drops directly into every live auction. The auction uses real-time signals about the query, ad, user context and expected experience.

That distinction changes how an operator should use it. Quality Score can help identify a broken connection, but it cannot tell you whether a keyword produces qualified leads, closed sales or profitable revenue.

A keyword can have a respectable score and still be commercially weak. Another can have a lower score while producing valuable conversions because it serves a narrow or difficult intent. Your job is not to maximize every score. Your job is to fix relevant weaknesses without losing sight of the client's economics.

The three components and what moves each one

The phrase “how to improve Google Ads Quality Score” sounds like one problem. In practice, it is three different problems that require different changes.

Expected click-through rate

Expected click-through rate estimates how likely an ad is to receive a click when it appears for the keyword. It is not a request to make every ad louder. A curiosity-driven headline may attract more clicks while lowering lead quality.

Start with the search terms behind the keyword. Ask:

Are the searches commercial, informational or mixed?
Is a broad keyword collecting several meanings?
Are irrelevant or low-intent terms consuming impressions?
Does the headline state the service, product or result the searcher expects?
Is the offer visible without forcing the reader to interpret vague copy?
Are multiple ads competing to serve different intents from the same ad group?

Suppose, as an example, a keyword for “commercial roof repair” is matching searches about residential repairs, roofing jobs and do-it-yourself materials. Rewriting the ad may not solve the underlying problem. The first move is to control the search-term mix, add appropriate negatives and decide whether the remaining intents belong in separate ad groups.

Reviewing the Google Ads search terms report is usually more useful than rewriting headlines before you understand which searches produced the impressions.

After the traffic is cleaner, work on the ad. Put the core intent in the headline. State the offer plainly. Make the next step clear. Use assets that help a qualified searcher choose, but remember that assets are not a fourth Quality Score component.

Ad relevance

Ad relevance measures how closely the ad matches the intent associated with the keyword. The usual failure is not bad writing. It is an ad group being asked to cover too many jobs.

Look for:

Keywords with different levels of purchase intent in one ad group
Product, service and support searches sharing the same message
Location-specific searches receiving generic copy
Competitor, category and brand terms using one ad
An old offer still present in copy after the landing page changed
Headlines that repeat keywords without answering the searcher's need

Do not split an ad group merely to create a prettier structure. Split it when a meaningful difference in intent calls for different copy, a different offer or a different landing page.

For example, “office coffee service” and “office coffee machine repair” may both mention office coffee, but the expected action is different. One searcher is evaluating a service. The other needs repair. A single generic ad will struggle to represent both accurately.

When teams ask how to improve ad quality score, this is often the most controllable part of the answer: narrow the promise until the ad says exactly what the searcher can get after the click.

Landing page experience

Landing page experience is not solved by inserting the keyword into another heading. The page must help the visitor complete the job implied by the search.

Check whether the page:

Opens with the same service, product or offer presented in the ad
Answers the main questions that come with that search intent
Makes eligibility, location or service limits clear
Uses a next step that fits the intent
Works properly on a phone
Loads without unnecessary delay
Avoids sending paid traffic into a generic homepage
Reflects the current offer and its terms

If you are working out how to improve landing page experience in Google Ads, read the page as a new visitor. Do not begin with the keyword count. Ask whether the visitor can confirm within seconds that the page covers what the ad promised.

Example: An ad offers same-day appliance repair, but the landing page describes the company broadly and never confirms same-day availability. The copy may be polished, yet the message match is weak. A dedicated service page that explains availability, covered appliances, locations and the booking step would answer the intent more directly.

Page changes must still make business sense. Removing qualification details to keep more visitors on the page may increase form volume while making the leads worse. The goal is a clearer path for the right visitor, not fewer reasons for anyone to leave.

Where to look first on an inherited account

An inherited account usually contains several layers of history: old structures, new match behavior, changed offers, rebuilt pages and decisions that made sense under a previous target. Preserve that context before making broad changes.

Add the diagnostic columns

At minimum, add these keyword columns:

Quality Score
Expected click-through rate
Ad relevance
Landing page experience
Historical Quality Score
Historical values for each component

The historical columns help separate a recent decline from a long-running weakness. Review change history beside them. A score that moved after a landing-page replacement needs a different investigation from one that has remained weak through several ad versions.

If you need to know how to check Google Ads Quality Score, start in the keyword view and add these columns. Do not evaluate only the current 1 to 10 score.

Prioritize by business importance

Do not start by sorting the entire account from lowest score to highest. That puts obscure, low-volume terms beside keywords that materially affect spend and conversions.

Build a working list based on:

Keywords tied to important offers
Keywords receiving enough activity to assess
Keywords with a weak component you can act on
Keywords whose search terms still match the client's intended audience

The priority is not “lowest score first.” It is “meaningful keyword, identifiable problem, sensible fix.”

Read the query before the keyword

A keyword label can hide a messy collection of searches. Review actual terms before deciding the ad or page is at fault.

Look for queries slipping past an existing negative, new low-intent meanings and terms that deserve their own message. Use a negative keyword strategy that protects good traffic instead of blocking whole themes too aggressively.

Then check whether the query, ad and landing page tell one consistent story. That path is the unit of diagnosis.

Confirm that the offer is still true

Inherited accounts often contain ads connected to expired promotions, renamed services or landing pages that no longer describe the same offer. Fix those mismatches before testing small copy variations.

Talk to the person responsible for the offer. Confirm what is available, where it is available, who qualifies and what action the client wants from the visitor. Media mechanics cannot repair an offer that the page no longer supports.

A practical sequence for improving weak scores

If the task is how to improve quality score without creating account-wide noise, use a controlled sequence.

1. Record the starting point

Capture the keyword, its three component ratings, the search terms, the active ad and the destination page. Add the business measures used to judge the traffic, such as qualified conversions, cost per acquisition or revenue.

This keeps the work tied to the client objective. It also prevents a later score change from being mistaken for a business result.

2. Name the mismatch in one sentence

Write a short diagnosis:

“The keyword is collecting repair and replacement searches, but the ad speaks only to replacement.”
“The ad promises a location-specific service, but the page does not confirm that location.”
“The ad group mixes research searches with purchase-ready searches.”
“The landing page still presents an expired offer.”

If you cannot name the mismatch, you do not yet have a change worth making.

3. Fix the source before the symptom

For an expected click-through rate problem, clean up search intent before adding more headlines.

For an ad relevance problem, fix the grouping and message before repeating the keyword throughout the ad.

For a landing page experience problem, improve the page's usefulness and offer match before changing the final URL to another generic page.

This is the core of how to improve Quality Score in Google Ads: work on the component that is actually weak.

4. Change one meaningful layer at a time

Avoid changing targeting, ads, bids and pages together unless an offer is plainly wrong and must be corrected. When every layer changes, you lose the ability to explain what happened.

Example: Say a campaign has a $50 target CPA and one important keyword shows below-average ad relevance. Keep the target stable while you separate the keyword into an intent-specific group and give it matching copy. Judge the change on qualified conversions and CPA as well as the diagnostic component.

5. Give the system enough evidence

Quality Score does not always respond immediately. New or low-volume keywords may not provide enough information for a useful diagnosis.

Do not keep editing because the displayed score failed to move after a short interval. Confirm that the right searches are triggering the right ad, then wait for enough activity to evaluate both the diagnostic and the business result.

6. Keep the score in its proper place

Use Quality Score to find friction. Use conversion quality, acquisition cost, revenue and return on ad spend to decide whether the account is working.

If a change raises the score but weakens commercial performance, the score does not get the final vote.

Frequently asked questions

What is Quality Score in Google Ads?

Quality Score is a keyword-level diagnostic scored from 1 to 10. It summarizes expected click-through rate, ad relevance and landing page experience based on recent historical performance.

How do you improve Quality Score?

Improve the weakest component for the keyword rather than chasing the score itself. Tighten query-to-ad alignment, write ads that set the right expectation and send traffic to a page that directly satisfies that intent.

Does Quality Score affect cost per click?

The displayed Quality Score is not a direct input in the live auction. The underlying relevance and quality signals can influence Ad Rank and the price required to compete, so improving the actual experience can still affect cost per click.

Should Quality Score be a KPI?

No. Use Quality Score to diagnose relevance problems, while judging the account by business measures such as qualified conversions, cost per acquisition, revenue and return on ad spend.

Why did my Quality Score drop?

A drop usually means expected click-through rate, ad relevance or landing page experience weakened relative to other advertisers for that keyword. Check the component columns, search-term mix, recent account changes, landing-page changes and shifts in user intent.

What Ads Arsenal does for this problem today

Ads Arsenal reads Google Ads accounts throughout the day and ranks recommended changes in an Insights queue. Its insights include search terms slipping past an existing negative, low-intent terms and landing pages that cover too little of an ad group's search intent. Each recommendation includes the reasoning and account numbers behind it, and nothing changes until a person approves it.

It also reads landing pages and offers so copy suggestions match what the business sells, and it remembers when an offer expires. Ads Arsenal is in a free design-partner beta for agencies and in-house teams running real spend on Google, Meta and TikTok: Become a design partner.