How Long Does Quality Score Take to Update on AdWords?

Google Ads quality score is extremely important, so it’s obviously quite anxiety-inducing when you’re making changes and not seeing any improvement. The culprit is the delay between changing your ads and getting an adjusted quality score. So how long does it take?

The Fast Answer

If you just want a quick answer and get out of here, I understand, so here it is: Google Ads updates the quality score of your ads on a per-keyword basis about once a day.

However, as with all things in marketing, there are a lot of variables involved, so you aren’t necessarily going to see changes on a daily basis. In fact, it can potentially take much longer. For high-volume keywords, quality score can update multiple times throughout the day. For lower-volume keywords, it might not update for a day or even a week.

Quality Score Calculations

Your Google Ads quality score is made up of calculations involving several different factors. In an oddly forward move, Google actually documents what those factors are.

• Expected Clickthrough Rate
• Ad Relevance
• Landing Page Experience

In order to actually calculate your quality score, Google needs to have enough valid information about your ads and their performance. That means they need impressions. The most commonly cited threshold is 1,000 impressions per keyword before a quality score is reliably assigned.

There is one notable exception worth knowing: a broad match keyword may still receive a quality score even with zero impressions of its own, as long as there is a corresponding exact match keyword with impressions recorded in the last 90 days. This is a useful detail that often gets overlooked.

It’s also worth knowing that a single optimization or targeting change will typically result in a quality score update within a few hours or days. If you’re making multiple changes at once, expect it to take longer, since Google needs to accumulate enough fresh data across all the variables that changed.

Google calculates quality score every single time your ad enters an auction. However, this doesn’t mean your reported score changes every auction. If the calculation doesn’t result in a change to your displayed score, Google simply doesn’t update what you see. Think of it as a live internal calculation that only surfaces in your dashboard when there’s something meaningfully different to report. If you’re running campaigns and want to avoid common pitfalls, it’s worth reviewing the most common Google AdWords mistakes that can quietly drag your scores down.

Quality Score Reporting

Google has continued to improve quality score reporting inside Google Ads over the years. You can see your information more clearly in your ad manager than ever before. The three core performance metrics are each reported individually, and historical data is available so you can track how your quality score has changed over time - which is genuinely useful when you’re trying to evaluate whether recent changes are having an effect.

You can check your quality score at any time directly inside Google Ads. Navigate to the Keywords section from the page menu on the left. From there, you can hover over the status column for any keyword to see a quick summary of its quality score components. Click into any individual keyword to dig deeper into the data, including the historical view.

If you want quality score columns visible in your main table at all times, click the Columns button, choose Modify Columns, and look under the Quality Score section. You can add overall quality score, as well as each of the three individual components, and you can add historical versions of each as well. Apply your changes and the columns will appear in your keyword report going forward.

How Quality Score Factors Work

Quality score is reported on a scale of 1 to 10 at the keyword level. If you see a dash instead of a number, that’s a null score, meaning there isn’t enough data yet to generate a rating. Each of the three components is rated as Below Average, Average, or Above Average.

It’s worth noting that the same keyword used across different ads can produce different quality scores. If two ads share the same keywords but point to different landing pages, they can end up with different scores if the landing page experience differs significantly between them.

Let’s go through each of the three components.

Expected Clickthrough Rate (ECTR) measures how likely users are to click your ad, based on Google’s estimate. The biggest input here is historical performance for similar ads and keywords. ECTR is calculated at every auction, so it can shift frequently. Crucially, it’s adjusted to strip out the effect of ad position, meaning your budget and placement don’t artificially inflate or deflate this metric. A below average ECTR typically means your ad text isn’t closely aligned with the keyword triggering it. Average and above average mean you’ve got a tighter match, and users are more likely to find the ad relevant and worth clicking.

Ad Relevance describes how well your ads and keywords match up with each other. If someone searches for striped wool socks, an above average ad would be specifically about striped wool socks. An average ad might cover wool socks or striped socks more broadly. A below average ad is just promoting socks in general with no real match to the search intent.

This metric rewards having many narrow, targeted ad groups rather than a few broad ones. Rather than one ad covering every type of sock, you’re better off building separate ad groups for different styles, materials, and patterns. Each ad ends up more tightly matched to its keywords, which typically means better relevance scores, lower competition, and higher clickthrough rates.

Landing Page Experience is inherently subjective, so Google focuses on measurable signals rather than aesthetic judgments. Mobile-friendliness is a significant factor; a responsive, fast-loading page that works well on any device is going to outperform a desktop-only experience. Matching your landing page copy to your target keywords also helps considerably. On the technical side, broken scripts, redirect chains, slow load times, and display errors can all drag your score down.

Some things don’t factor in the way you might expect. Google isn’t evaluating whether your product is a good deal, whether your page looks beautiful, or whether you have an explainer video. Auto-playing media or broken embeds can hurt you, but tasteful multimedia won’t give you a meaningful boost on its own. Schema markup and other structured data can help in supporting contexts, but are not required to achieve an above average landing page experience score.

Improving Ad Quality Scores

If you want to improve your quality scores, there are several changes that tend to have the biggest impact.

Split your ads into many tightly focused ad groups targeting narrow, specific keywords. The sock example above illustrates this well. A single sock retailer could build separate ad groups for ankle socks, compression socks, wool hiking socks, patterned dress socks, and so on. Each ad group gets copy that closely matches those specific keywords, which drives up relevance and expected clickthrough rate. Your overall average quality score improves because you’ve replaced a handful of mediocre broad campaigns with many well-matched narrow ones.

Prune underperforming keywords regularly. Monitor how your keywords are performing and cut anything that dramatically underperforms. A keyword sitting at a quality score of 2 or 3 with minimal impressions is dragging down your account health. If a keyword isn’t pulling its weight, remove it. Focusing your budget and attention on your stronger performers will have a compounding positive effect over time.

Include your keyword in the ad copy. This doesn’t mean stuffing it in awkwardly - integrate it naturally, just as you would in a well-written headline or meta title. The goal is to reinforce to both Google and the user that this ad is specifically relevant to what they searched for.

Test multiple ads consistently. Running ad variations and letting data accumulate helps you refine every element of your copy over time. This is especially important when you’re trying to move a stuck quality score; sometimes a different headline angle or call to action is all it takes to shift your ECTR from average to above average.

Make sure your budget supports adequate data collection. If you’re not reaching around 1,000 impressions per keyword, your quality score either won’t appear or won’t update meaningfully. You need enough volume to generate statistically useful signals. If you’re testing a new ad group, make sure the budget is sufficient to actually gather data in a reasonable timeframe.

On the landing page side, a lot of the improvements mirror standard SEO best practices. Page speed is critical. Mobile optimization is non-negotiable at this point. Your landing page content should be unique and directly relevant to the keywords and ad copy you’re using. Avoid thin pages, broken media, confusing layouts, or any technical issues that create friction for users. Make trust signals prominent - clear navigation, contact information, and consistent branding all contribute positively.

Finally, remember that your quality score is always in flux. As you test and change your ads, your score will rise and fall. A lower quality score isn’t a death sentence. Always keep the bigger picture in mind - your overall conversion rate, cost per acquisition, and return on ad spend matter more than chasing a perfect 10. A quality score of 7 on a highly profitable ad is far more valuable than a quality score of 10 on an ad that doesn’t convert. Use quality score as a diagnostic tool, not a target in itself.