What Quality Index is… Not

We talk a lot about quality index, but what does it mean to you?

When defining a thing, sometimes it helps to start with what the thing is not. So here’s what your quality index is NOT:

• A measure of your conversions. (A “conversion” is when a click becomes a sale, or when the user takes some other desired action, such as registering.)
• A measure of the quality of the products and services you offer through your site.
• A measure of how nice your site looks, how pretty its graphics are, or how well it is laid out.

Here’s what an ad’s quality index IS:

It is a relative measure of how relevant an ad is. It reflects an ad’s ability to meet the needs of users by taking into account various relevance factors and click-through rate compared to its position and other ads displayed at the same time. It also takes into account all keywords in your ad group. 

Why You Should Care
Improving your ad’s quality index can help you achieve better ad placement at less cost. On the blog, we have tried to offer some pretty comprehensive tips to help you do that:

• Improving Ad Quality, Part I
• Improving Ad Quality, Part II
• Improving Ad Quality, Part III
• Improving Ad Quality, Part IV
• Improving Ad Copy
• Understanding and Improving Your Quality Index

For more on the quality index, visit the Help Center.

—Michael Mattis, Quality Blogster