Quality Score is Google Ads' way of rating how relevant your ads and landing pages are to searchers. It's scored 1-10 per keyword and directly affects two things: your cost per click and your ad position. A higher Quality Score means you pay less for better placement.
Three components: Expected click-through rate (how likely your ad is to be clicked), Ad relevance (how well your ad matches the search intent), and Landing page experience (how useful your page is to someone who clicks).
Landing page experience is the one you can control
Google evaluates your landing page on: content relevance to the ad and keyword, page speed (Core Web Vitals), mobile-friendliness, transparency (clear business info, privacy policy), and ease of navigation. A page that loads slowly, doesn't match the ad's promise, or is hard to use on mobile will drag down your Quality Score.
The most impactful fix: message match. If your ad says "Free landing page analysis in 60 seconds" and the landing page headline says "Welcome to our platform" — that mismatch tanks your Quality Score. The landing page headline should echo the ad copy. Same language, same promise, same specificity.