Quality Score In 2026: Does It Still Matter?

I still get sent spreadsheets with an average Quality Score at the bottom, colour-coded red to green, presented as the health check on an account. Nine times out of ten the account has a tracking problem, a budget problem or a landing page problem, and none of them show up in that column.

So here is my call. Quality Score still matters, but not as a score. Google is explicit that Quality Score is a diagnostic tool and not an input in the ad auction, and that it should not be treated as a KPI or aggregated with the rest of your data. What runs the auction is your quality measured live, at the moment someone searches. The number in your keyword table is a rear-view estimate of that. Read it as a symptom tracker, fix what it points at, and never optimise the number itself. Below: what the score is built from, what quality genuinely buys you in 2026, what it does not touch, and the routine I use.

What Quality Score actually measures

Quality Score is a 1 to 10 rating at keyword level, built from three components, each reported as Above average, Average or Below average:

• Expected click-through rate. How likely your ad is to be clicked when it shows.
• Ad relevance. How closely the ad matches the intent behind the search.
• Landing page experience. How relevant and useful the page is to people who click.

Two details from Google’s own documentation change how you should read it. First, the score is based on historical impressions for exact searches of your keyword, compared against other advertisers who showed for that same search over the last 90 days. Second, it is relative. Your score can drop while your ads get better, because the field around you got better faster.

That exact-match basis is also why keywords show a dash instead of a number. A null score means Google has not seen enough exact-match impressions in the window to rate the keyword. It is not a zero and it is not a penalty. Chasing it is a waste of an afternoon.

What quality still buys you

The number is diagnostic. The thing underneath it is not.

Ad Rank is calculated from your bid, the quality of your ad and landing page at auction time, the Ad Rank thresholds you have to clear, how competitive the auction is, the context of the search, and the expected impact of your assets and ad formats. Google recalculates that every time your ad is eligible to appear, which is why your position moves through the day without you touching anything.

The lever most advertisers miss sits in the thresholds. Google states plainly that lower quality ads face higher Ad Rank thresholds. Miss the threshold and you do not show at all, however hard you bid. Clear it comfortably and you hold position for less. That is the real return on quality work: cheaper clicks at the same position, and eligibility in auctions your competitor is being priced out of. I go deeper on that mechanic in how to lower your Google Ads CPC.

So the honest answer to “does Quality Score matter” is that quality matters enormously and the score is just the cheapest available readout of it.

What Quality Score does not do

This is where accounts waste time.

Smart Bidding does not optimise to it. Target CPA and Target ROAS optimise to your conversion data. Feed them clean signals and they will happily bid up a keyword with a Quality Score of 5 because it converts. If you want the strategy that fits your data volume, start with Google Ads bidding strategies explained.

Most of your account does not have one. Quality Score is a Search campaign metric at keyword level. Performance Max, Demand Gen and Shopping have no equivalent column. If half your budget sits outside Search, half your budget has no Quality Score to report on and the average at the bottom of the sheet is meaningless.

Ad Strength is not Quality Score. Ad Strength is feedback on the relevance, quality and diversity of your responsive search ad assets. It does not appear in Google’s list of Ad Rank factors. Fixing an Ad Strength of Poor is often worth doing on its own merits, but do not report it as a quality win.

An average is not a diagnosis. Aggregating scores across thousands of keywords hides the twenty keywords that spend real money and score badly. Sort by cost, not by score.

The three inputs, and which are worth your time

Not all three are equally fixable. Here is how I triage them.

Component	What a Below average means	The fix	Worth it?
Ad relevance	The ad copy does not echo the query	Split the ad group, get the keyword into headlines	Yes, fastest win
Expected CTR	Your ad loses the click to competitors	Sharper offer, stronger headline, check what rivals promise	Yes, but slower to register
Landing page experience	The page does not deliver on the ad	Message match, speed, mobile, one clear action	Yes, biggest job

Ad relevance is the cheapest to fix and moves quickest. If one ad group is carrying five different intents, no single ad can be relevant to all of them, and the fix is structural rather than creative. Split it.

Expected CTR is a competitive measure, so treat a drop as intelligence about the auction rather than a fault in your ad. Check Auction Insights before you rewrite anything.

Landing page experience is the one people skip because it lives outside the ads editor and usually needs a developer. It is also the one that quietly caps everything else. Our 13-point CRO research framework is where I would start if the page is the weak link.

Why chasing a 10 is the wrong goal

A 10 tells you that you are winning a comparison against other advertisers on that exact search. It does not tell you the keyword makes money.

I would rather run a keyword at 6 that converts at a cost per acquisition I can defend than a 10 on a term that fills the account with browsers. Plenty of high-volume, high-intent commercial keywords sit stubbornly at 5 or 6 because the field is strong and the searches are expensive to serve. That is the market, not a failing.

Lift the weak keywords that spend. Ignore the ones that do not.

How often to look at it

Monthly, and never on its own.

Once a month, filter your keyword table to the terms above a meaningful spend threshold for your account, add the Quality Score component columns, and look only at the ones flagged Below average. That is your list. Group them by which component is failing, because the fix differs completely: relevance is a structure job, expected CTR is a copy and offer job, landing page is a site job.

Then leave it alone. Component statuses move on a 90-day comparison, so checking weekly tells you nothing except that your competitors were busy. Spend the recovered time in the search terms report, where the wasted spend actually is.

Want a second read on your account?

If your Quality Score column looks fine and your cost per conversion still does not, the problem is somewhere else, and a fresh pair of eyes finds it faster than another month of tweaking headlines. We run a free Google Ads audit that goes through structure, tracking, wasted spend and landing pages, and you get the findings whether or not you work with us. If you want that turned into ongoing work, that is what our Google Ads management and wider paid search work covers.

FAQ

Does Quality Score affect my cost per click? Not the number itself, since Google says it is not an input in the auction. The quality it reflects does. Ad Rank uses your ad and landing page quality at auction time, and lower quality ads face higher Ad Rank thresholds, so weak quality means paying more for the same position or not showing at all.

What is a good Quality Score? Anything at 7 or above on a keyword that spends is healthy. Below 5 on a keyword taking real budget is worth investigating. Do not judge the account on an average, because it hides the expensive keywords that need the work.

Why do some keywords have no Quality Score? A dash means there have not been enough exact-match impressions for your keyword in the scoring window for Google to rate it. New keywords and low-volume terms sit there routinely. It is not a zero and there is nothing to fix.

Does Quality Score exist in Performance Max? No. Quality Score is a keyword-level metric in Search campaigns. Performance Max, Demand Gen and Shopping have no equivalent, so judge those on conversion performance and asset reporting instead.

Can I improve Quality Score quickly? Ad relevance can move within weeks once you tighten ad group structure and get the keyword into your headlines. Expected CTR and landing page experience take longer, because both are scored against a rolling 90-day comparison with other advertisers.