How Google's ad auction prices relevance, and why a higher bid is not the only lever

In short

A common assumption is that the highest bid wins the ad slot. Google says otherwise in its own documentation. Its auction treats the bid as one of six factors, and several of the others concern the quality of the ad, the page behind it and the context of the search.

That matters to a founder choosing how to spend. If the auction rewards ads that people are likelier to act on, the work around the ad becomes part of the price: what the ad promises, who sees it and what they find afterwards. This piece sets out what Google says its auction scores, and where Blue Leopard Media thinks press coverage fits.

What Google's Ad Rank scores on every search

Google describes Ad Rank as a set of values used to decide whether an ad is eligible to show and where it sits against other advertisers' ads. It is calculated twice in each auction: once for eligibility, then for ranking. A separate auction runs for each ad location, and it is recalculated for every search.

Google lists six factors. They are the bid, ad and landing page quality, the Ad Rank thresholds, the competitiveness of the auction, the context of the search, and the expected impact of assets and formats such as sitelinks or phone numbers.

Generally speaking, the advertiser with the highest Ad Rank takes the top position, as long as its ad clears the thresholds. Only one of the six factors is the amount of money the advertiser is willing to pay.

A worked example: who is eligible and who is not

Google's help page includes an example with seven advertisers. Their Ad Ranks are 80, 50, 30, 10, minus 10, minus 30 and minus 35. In the example the minimum to show on a results page is 0, and the minimum for the top ad location is 40. Google's example asks readers to assume these values and thresholds.

The three advertisers below zero are ineligible and do not show at all. The advertisers on 80 and 50 are eligible for the top location, above the search results. The advertisers on 30 and 10 can only appear in lower ad locations.

The example shows the order of events. Ad Rank first decides whether an ad can appear in a location, and only then where it ranks. To improve share of the top ad location, Google suggests improving ad and landing page quality or increasing the bid. Both are levers, and Google names quality first.

Why quality changes what you pay, not only where you appear

A bid is a maximum. Google says what an advertiser actually ends up paying is often less. It also states that higher quality ads can often lead to lower costs per click.

Google adds a caveat on the competitiveness of an auction. As the gap in Ad Rank between two ads grows, the higher-ranking ad is more likely to win but may pay a higher cost per click. Where two ads have similar Ad Ranks, each has a similar chance of winning the position.

Quality also reaches beyond the price. Google says it affects eligibility, the cost of the ads and eligibility for assets such as sitelinks.

The thresholds make quality a gate before it is a price. Google says minimum Ad Rank values are set to help ensure high quality ads, and that quality measures help determine each ad's threshold.

The three parts of Quality Score, and what they tell you

Quality Score is a figure from 1 to 10, reported per keyword. Google is explicit that it is a diagnostic tool and not a key performance indicator, and that it is not an input in the ad auction. What it does is summarise three components: expected click-through rate, ad relevance and landing page experience.

The first is expected click-through rate, the likelihood that the ad will be clicked when shown. The second is ad relevance, how closely the ad matches the intent behind a search. The third is landing page experience, how relevant and useful the page is to people who click.

Each component is rated above average, average or below average. The rating compares the advertiser with others whose ads showed for the exact same search over the last 90 days. Google is not grading an ad in isolation. It is grading it against the other businesses trying to answer the same query.

Google says a status of average or below average may signal an opportunity to improve. It also says some ad quality factors might not be captured by the score. Device, user location, time of day and assets are among those left out.

Advertisers can see the score and its components inside the account by adding the Quality Score columns to the keywords table. Segmenting by day shows how the ratings change over time.

Where press coverage fits, in Blue Leopard Media's view

Google's Ad Rank factors do not include press coverage, and this piece does not claim that it is one. The argument is about what the factors measure. Expected click-through rate is a prediction of human behaviour. Landing page experience is a judgement about whether a person who clicks finds something useful.

An ad is one step in a longer path. Search campaigns catch people typing what you sell.

Whether press coverage shows up in a particular account's numbers is something to test rather than assume, and Blue Leopard Media does not promise a ranking position from it. What it can say is that a click is only worth paying for if the person arriving has a reason to stay.

Blue Leopard Media sells editorial features on the publications it works with. Prices start at $249 for one feature, $499 for three and $999 for eight, with no retainer, according to its PR service page. The client approves every word before anything is published.

What the auction means for a founder's choice

For a founder deciding between a bigger ad budget and a better position, Google's auction documentation points the same way. Raising the bid is one lever. Improving what the ad promises, who sees it and what they find afterwards are the others, and Google says the better-quality ad can often pay less per click.

That is why Blue Leopard Media runs Google Ads, Meta Ads and press coverage as one team. Its Google Ads service works from a written proposal with scope, fee and terms. Changes are made weekly to cut wasted searches and move budget to what is working, and a report follows each month.

The point of running them together is that each channel supplies what the others lack. The ad earns the click, the coverage gives the visitor something credible to find, and the auction is the place where that quality is priced.