Google AdWords - Quality Score

Every keyword in an adWords campaign is given a quality score by Google. This score is extremely important because it determines:

1. How much you actually pay for each click
2. Whether your ads will run at all
3. Your ad rank (position)
4. Whether your ad will show for all broad matches of the keyword

The finer details of the quality score algorithm aren’t made public, however:

Quality Score is determined by CTR (click through rate), ad relevancy and landing page relevancy. At this point, the landing page relevancy only affects the minimum bid required for the ads to run at all. However a senior product manager at Google indicated last November that landing pages will at some point be taken into consideration when determining ad rank.

The quality score was introduced to provide a better experience for searchers by giving prominence to ads that are the most relevant to their search query.

The amount you pay for your adWords campaign doesn’t determine your position on the page. Good PPC advertising can mean that you pay less than a competitor and are also in a higher position if your quality score is higher.