What is Google Ad Rank?

Ads are positioned on Google’s search and Display Network pages based on their Ad Rank. The ad with the highest Ad Rank appears in the first position, and so on down the page.

Criteria used to determine Ad Rank differs depending on whether your ads are appearing on Google and the search network or on the Display Network. There's actually a third set of criteria as well that determines whether a placement-targeted ad will show on a given Display Network page. However today we will look at the Search Network only as this is the network you will most commonly use.

A keyword-targeted ad is ranked on a search result page. This is based on the maximum cost-per-click (CPC) bid you have set on your ad/keyword or group, and the Quality Score.

The Quality Score for Ad Rank on Google Search Network is determined by the following factors:

• The historicalof the keyword and the matched ad on the site. For Google, only historical performance on Google is considered. For search partners, performance on the specific search partner is used, along with how the ad performs across the search network.
• Your account history, which is measured by the CTR of all the ads and keywords in your account
• The historical CTR of thein the ad group
• The relevance of the keyword to the ads in its ad group
• The relevance of the keyword and the matched ad to the search query
• Your account's performance in the geographical region where the ad will be shown
• The quality of the landing page
• Other relevance factors
  
  

So as you can see there are quite a few factors that will affect your ad rank.

Improving Your Ranking

It always comes down to you having relevant keywords and ad text along with a strong CTR on Google, and also high CPC bid. This will result in a higher position for your ad and because with Google’s ranking system it rewards well-targeted, relevant ads, you can't be locked out of the top position as you would be in a ranking system based solely on price.