HOW TO IMPROVE QUALITY SCORE IN GOOGLE ADS IN 2026: THE THREE COMPONENTS AND HOW THEY WORK

In 2026, Quality Score in Google Ads remains one of the most misread metrics in the platform. Many advertisers still treat it as a number to chase, a single score from 1 to 10 to be maximized for its own sake. In practice it works very differently: Quality Score is a diagnostic tool that tells you where the experience you are delivering, across ad, keyword, and landing page, is weaker than your competitors'. It is built from three components, and the value of the metric lies almost entirely in reading those three components separately.

This article is written from the perspective of managing real Search accounts: not just what Quality Score is on paper, but what each component actually responds to, what inference you can draw from the status labels, and which interventions move the needle versus which are a waste of time. I will reference Google's official documentation where it defines the metric, and add the operational observations that the documentation does not spell out.

What Quality Score is in Google Ads in 2026

Quality Score is reported at the keyword level on a scale from 1 to 10, and it is calculated from the combined performance of three components: expected CTR, ad relevance, and landing page experience. According to Google, Quality Score is not itself an input in the ad auction: it is a diagnostic indicator meant to show how the ads that appear for a given keyword affect the user experience compared with other advertisers. The official definition is in the About Quality Score for Search campaigns guide.

None of this means Quality Score is irrelevant to results. The components that build it are tightly connected to how Google calculates Ad Rank, and a higher quality score generally travels with a lower cost per click (CPC) for the same position, while a good quality score tends to unlock better placements at the same bid. The metric is the lens; the components are the levers behind your actual costs.

The 1-10 number is a summary, not the lever

The single Quality Score number compresses a lot of information into one digit, which is convenient for a quick scan but useless as an optimization target on its own. Each component carries a status, Below average, Average, or Above average, derived from a comparison with other advertisers whose ads appeared for the exact same searches over the previous 90 days. That comparative, status-based evaluation is what tells you where to act. Chasing a 7 to make it an 8 means nothing; turning a Below average ad relevance into Average is a concrete, actionable change.

Why the distinction between score and components matters

A point Google states explicitly is that the real-time evaluations of the three components, not the visible Quality Score number, are what feed the ad auction. This is the single most important thing to internalize about the metric in 2026. The reported Quality Score is a lagging, keyword-level diagnostic; the auction uses fresh per-query estimates of expected CTR, ad relevance, and landing page experience. Google describes how to use these to guide optimization in Using Quality Score to guide optimizations.

The three components of Quality Score

Every meaningful action on Quality Score starts by isolating which of the three components is weak. They respond to different inputs and they fail for different reasons, so it is worth understanding each one on its own before touching the account. You can surface all three by adding the Quality Score columns to the keyword view in your Google Ads account, which exposes the current and historical status of each component side by side.

1. Expected CTR

Expected CTR, short for expected click through rate, is Google's prediction of how likely your ad is to be clicked when it shows for a given keyword, normalized for position so that an ad in a lower slot is not penalized simply for ranking lower. It is built largely from the historical click through rates (CTR) your ads have earned on that keyword and on closely related searches across the search engine results. Expected CTR rewards ads that people actually want to click: clear value propositions, specific offers, numbers and prices, and headlines that echo the searcher's words.

From operational experience: expected CTR is the component most directly moved by the ad copy itself and by the asset mix (sitelinks, callouts, structured snippets). When I see a Below average expected CTR, the first inference is almost always that the headlines are generic, or that the ad is competing in an auction where rivals are running sharper, more specific copy. Adding or rewriting headlines so they contain the keyword and a concrete benefit is the fastest way to recover it.

2. Ad relevance

Ad relevance measures how closely your ad matches the intent behind the user's search, in other words, whether the words and meaning of your ad line up with what the person was actually looking for. A Below average or Average ad relevance usually points to a structural problem: an ad group holding too many loosely related keywords, so no single ad can speak directly to all of them.

From experience: ad relevance is the component that most clearly reflects account structure rather than copywriting talent. A genuinely well-written ad can still score Below average on relevance if it sits in an ad group covering five different themes. The inference to draw from a low ad relevance is therefore rarely "write a better ad" and more often "split this ad group." Tightening specific keywords into themes so each ad group is narrow enough for one ad to address it is the intervention that reliably lifts this component.

3. Landing page experience

Landing page experience measures how relevant and useful your landing page is to people who click the ad: whether the page delivers what the ad promised, loads quickly, works well on mobile, and is easy to navigate. Google evaluates it through a mix of automated signals and human review, comparing your page against those of other advertisers competing for the same searches.

From operational experience: a Below average landing page experience very often comes down to a single mistake, sending every ad group to the homepage instead of the most specific relevant page. If someone searches for one product and lands on a generic catch-all page, the gap between expectation and what they find degrades this component, and you can see it indirectly in a high bounce rate. Matching each ad group to a page that answers exactly that intent is the change with the largest effect here.

How to improve Quality Score: actions by component

Because the three components fail for different reasons, the right way to improve Quality Score is to diagnose first and act narrowly. The tips to improve below are grouped by component, since high quality scores come from fixing the specific weak signal rather than applying generic advice everywhere. Google frames this same logic in its 5 ways to use Quality Score to improve your performance guide, which recommends reading the components and addressing the weak one rather than treating Quality Score as a single number to optimize.

Raising ad relevance

When ad relevance is the weak link, match the language of your ad text more directly to user search terms, and look for ad groups packed with many different keywords that one ad cannot serve. Split those broad ad groups into tighter ones where the keywords share a single theme. In my experience this restructuring is the highest-leverage move available, because tighter ad groups tend to lift ad relevance and expected CTR at the same time and make it trivial to point each group at a more specific landing page.

Raising expected CTR

To lift expected CTR, make the ad genuinely more clickable: include the keyword in the headlines, lead with a specific benefit or offer, use numbers and prices where appropriate, and exploit the full set of available assets so the ad occupies more space and answers more questions. The inference behind a stubbornly low expected CTR is usually that the message is too generic relative to competitors, so the fix is sharper, more differentiated copy rather than more of the same.

Raising landing page experience

For landing page experience, send each ad group to the single most relevant page, keep that page fast and mobile-friendly, and make sure its content visibly delivers on the promise in the ad. A page that mirrors the searcher's intent, the gold-necklace ad going to the gold-necklace category rather than the homepage, is what moves this component. Where the landing page is weak, the gains tend to be the largest of the three, because the page sits at the intersection of search intent, ad message, and the final offer, and a better-matched page usually lifts conversion rate in the same move.

Field notes: what experience adds to the documentation

The official definition of Quality Score is precise but deliberately high level. A few practical observations from running accounts are worth adding on top of it.

Quality Score is a lagging signal, so be patient and selective

Because the reported number is based on historical impressions for exact searches of your keyword, it does not react the moment you change an ad. After restructuring an ad group or rewriting copy, the visible Quality Score can take weeks of fresh impressions to catch up. The practical consequence is to be selective: concentrate effort on high-volume, high-value keywords where the components are Below average and where you can actually change something, rather than spreading attention across the whole account.

Don't chase the number, read the diagnosis

The most common mistake I still see in 2026 is treating Quality Score as a vanity metric to push from 6 to 9. That framing leads to wasted effort on keywords that are already fine and neglect of the components that are genuinely Below average. The metric earns its keep only when you use it as a map: find the weak component, infer the likely cause (copy, structure, or page), make the one change that addresses it, and let the data confirm whether the inference was right.

Structure is the change with the broadest reach

If there is a single recurring lesson, it is that account structure, how keywords are grouped and which page each group points to, influences all three components at once. Good structure raises ad relevance by letting one ad address one theme, raises expected CTR by enabling tighter copy, and raises landing page experience by making it natural to send each group to its most relevant page. More than any individual copy tweak, structure is where durable Quality Score improvement comes from.