Quality Score is normalized to compensate for performance differences resulting from ad position.

Quality Score measures how relevant your keywords are to users' search queries and influences CPCs and first page bids in your account. We'll be bringing you a short series of facts about Quality Score to help answer the questions we frequently receive, beginning with this one:

Showing up in a higher position will not benefit your Quality Score. Although higher-ranked ads may typically earn better clickthrough rates, Quality Score is normalized to compensate for performance differences resulting from ad position.