Google AdWords quality score is not the most exciting subject but it’s important to understand. Why? Because if a keyword you’re bidding on has a high quality score, you’ll be paying less for clicks on your adverts and it is likely to get a better advert position or Ad Rank. The formula for Ad Rank that Google uses should make this clear:

Ad Rank = Cost Per Click (CPC) bid x quality score

If two advertisers have the same CPC bid for the same keyword, the one with the higher quality score gets the higher advert position as Google deems it to be more relevant. So, quality score is a good measure of keyword/query relevance – right? Well, sort of.

This is how it works: if your keyword matches a searcher’s query, Google calculates its quality score on-the-fly; this happens even before Google decides if and where to show your advert. Until now, one significant factor in determining quality score has been the Click Through Rate (CTR) of the keyword (though it is not the only factor in its determination – the ‘quality’ of your landing page also plays its part). The thinking was that searchers tend to click on adverts that are relevant so clicks are a measure of relevance.

So, if your keyword has a good CTR, Google may award it a high Quality Score (QS). If your keyword has a high QS then it may get a better Ad Rank (ad position). If it gets a better Ad Rank it will likely get more clicks. More clicks equals better CTR which equals potentially higher QS which equals…hold on…so an advertiser with deep pockets could decide to boost their quality score by building up their CTR with increased max CPC bids.

How Google AdWords Quality Score is changing
Google’s first change is to level the playing field by tweaking the quality score calculation. This is meant to ‘better evaluate the precise quality of your ad – regardless of its position on the page’. Basically they’re going to take into account the influence of advert position on searchers (and therefore your CTR) when calculating quality score. In theory this means that advertisers with big budgets won’t be able to ‘buy’ a portion of their quality score for a keyword/ad combination that is actually less relevant to the query than the competition.

Leap-frogging to the top slots
Sometimes advertisers like to target the top 3 positions (in the light coloured band above the organic search results). These have the greatest visibility to searchers plus they’re the ones that get syndicated across Google search partners for increased reach. Getting a high enough quality score to bust through Google’s quality threshold for this band is a prerequisite to getting into this particular club (assuming you also have the budget!)

Ever wondered why the top band doesn’t always carry adverts? Up until now, if an advert had the top Ad Rank but fell short on reaching Google’s quality threshold, the advert probably wouldn’t make it into the top band and it would be placed in position 1 of the right-hand sponsored links; there would be no adverts carried in the top of page positions. Now that’s set to change.

With the update, Google will now allow an advert that meets their quality threshold to appear in the top band even if it has to leap-frog over other higher ranking ads to do so. Confused? An example here might help!

• Two adverts are showing for a query. Advert X has the highest Ad Rank but its quality score is not high enough to reach the top sponsored listings band. It will appear in slot 1 of the right-hand sponsored links.
• Advert Y, with the lower Ad Rank, appears below Advert X in position 2.  Advert Y actually has a better quality score than Advert X but is out-ranked because Advert X has a sufficiently high CPC bid (remember: Ad Rank = CPC bid × Quality Score)
• If Advert Y (in position 2) has a quality score that is higher than the threshold required for the top band, it can now leap-frog Advert X into one of the top slots above the organic search results.

OK, so relevance can trump budget into a top slot. Clearly its also a win for Google: not having the top slots occupied by adverts means fewer clicks and less revenue.

Keep an eye on your stats
These changes do seem to be genuine improvements that will benefit searchers and push advertisers to up their game. But Google is a business and any change that may affect your advertising costs should be closely monitored. Keep an eye on your average CPCs and changes to your average positions at the keyword level.