Did you know that some Google AdWords advertisers pay less per click than others for the same keyword and ad in the same position? Additionally some features such as showing a fifth line in your Google search ad are not enabled for all users! In fact different prices for different advertisers are calculated by Google every time there is a search query!

It’s possible you could pay 10 times more than your competitor! Wow! Doesn’t seem fair does it? But this variation in pricing is not because of who you are or your relationship with Google – it’s because of your performance as expressed in your Google Quality Score.

Quality Score
Google doesn’t reveal all when it comes to quality score. Much of it is based on CTR (click through rate) which is the number of times the ad is clicked divided by the number of times the ad is shown. They do reveal some important factors are the relevancy of the keyword/ad/search query, the CTR of the ad/keyword combination, and other click through rates including the CTR for the entire account.

The Quality Score is shown for each keyword but this is just an approximation since it varies according the the ad and search query. Additionally the Quality score is not shown over time – no historical data.

Why Charge Based on Quality Score?
Google took it all away from the other search engines because their results became more relevant. Instead of searching through page after page of Yahoo results, users quickly learned they could find what they were looking for quicker on Google. Google realizes the importance of relevancy today and the quality score is a reflection of this. If you show crappy ads that no clicks on – then you are taking up space that could be occupied by an ad that people will actually click on. Your poor ad is not what people are looking for and this damages Google.