How Does Google Determine Quality Score?

Jul 08, 2010 by Jay Solway

Google is quick to point out that they use an algorithm to determine Quality Score. It is based on click-through rate (CTR) and relevance, which are somewhat interlinked - with “relevance” being a very broad concept.  Google won’t get any more specific than that, claiming that if they do, it would provide an unfair competitive advantage. That being said I would like to take this opportunity to provide my insights to get a little bit more specific on exactly what Google looks at and what can be done on the advertiser’s end.  Before I begin, here is a quick video straight from Google that gives you the basics:

Based on years of experience within AdWords as well as having attended Quality Score seminars taught by Google, CTR is clearly the number one factor in determining Quality Score. So the next question becomes how do I improve my CTR? 

The three best practices I can recommend are:

1) Raising your bids
2) Creating quality ad text, and
3) Being granular within your campaigns and ad groups. 

In my next blog post I will get more specific on how best to create quality ad text and become more granular, but I would first like to address how raising bids, in my experiences, impacts Quality Score. Google technically will not state that bid amounts factor into Quality Score but they will begrudgingly admit that it plays a role in ad ranking, which, of course, will affect CTR.

What I would recommend is bidding the highest dollar amount you are comfortable with when you first begin the account in order to attain higher placement and build history.  Each month after you should be able to slowly decrease your bids and maintain your positioning.

This has proven a solid strategy for me over the years. Suppose you work in an industry where the average CPC for the keywords you desire is estimated to cost between $2 and $2.50 using free tools provided by Google. I would recommend bidding $5 knowing that you will likely pay somewhere in the range of $2.50 and likely be the top paid result or near to it. As time goes on you can lower your bid to the $2.50 range pay less, than that even, and benefit from the previous history when you were bidding higher. Of course, there is no magic bullet when it comes to managing campaigns, and like any other component of your campaign, you’ll want to closely monitor your bids and how they are affecting ad position and CPC. It’s an inexact science and one that needs frequent adjustments for the best results.

Maximizing these three aspects within AdWords, starting higher initial bidding, will ultimately be your key to building a successful AdWords account. When I next get my blog hat on, we’ll cover the other two key areas of writing appealing ad text and maintaining granularity in your campaigns.