AI Max campaigns evaluate landing page quality as part of their optimization model. Unlike traditional campaigns where Quality Score measured landing page relevance to keywords, AI Max uses landing page signals differently — and the signals that matter most have changed.
How AI Max Uses Landing Pages
In traditional Search campaigns, landing page quality contributed to Quality Score, which affected ad rank and CPC. The formula: Ad Relevance + Landing Page Experience + Expected CTR = Quality Score.
In AI Max for Search, the mechanism is different:
- Quality Score still exists at the keyword level for keyword-based campaigns running alongside AI Max
- For AI Max's dynamic query matching, the AI evaluates landing page content to understand what your ads are about and which queries are relevant
- The AI uses landing page content as a signal for query matching expansion — pages that clearly describe specific topics allow the AI to expand into related queries for those topics
Landing pages that communicate clearly and specifically help AI Max understand what queries to enter. Vague landing pages (generic category pages, thin content) make the AI's query matching less precise.
The DSA Connection
DSA campaigns (retiring February 2027: https://yositeup.com/blog/google-ads-dsa-ai-max-migration-february-2027) used landing page content as their primary targeting mechanism — DSA literally read your pages to decide what queries to bid on. This is why DSA campaigns often performed best on pages with rich, specific content.
When you migrate DSA to AI Max for Search, landing page quality remains important as a signal. The key difference: AI Max for Search also uses RSA assets and audience signals alongside landing page content. It's not as purely dependent on landing pages as DSA was.
But if your DSA campaigns performed well on certain pages (high conversion rate, good IS), those pages' content quality is partly responsible. Maintain that content quality through the migration.
What the July 2026 ToS Means for Landing Pages
The July 2026 ToS update (https://yositeup.com/blog/google-ads-tos-july-2026-ai-automation-what-changed) includes provisions about AI authority over ad destinations. The AI can select which landing page to send traffic to for AI Max campaigns that have multiple page targets.
Practically: if your AI Max campaign targets multiple landing pages (different URLs for different product categories), the AI may send traffic to a different page than you'd manually choose for a specific query. This is AI landing page optimization — the AI selects the page it predicts will convert the query.
To work with this rather than against it:
- Ensure all pages the AI might select are high-quality and mobile-optimized
- Don't have a weak page in your targeting that could drag conversion rates down if the AI routes traffic to it
After the Data Deletion — Landing Page Feedback Loop
The June 2026 data deletion (https://yositeup.com/blog/google-ads-reporting-data-deleted-june-2026) removed conversion data. One underappreciated effect: page-level conversion data used for AI's landing page quality assessment was also removed for the deleted period.
For accounts that were A/B testing landing pages via Google Ads experiments during April 2025-May 2026, those experiment results are gone. Pages that showed higher conversion rates in deleted data may now have insufficient data for the AI's page quality assessment.
If you were using page-level conversion data from the deleted period to make landing page decisions, treat those decisions as unvalidated and test again in Q3-Q4 2026.
AI Max for Shopping Landing Pages
For AI Max for Shopping (https://yositeup.com/blog/google-ai-max-shopping-replacing-performance-max-2026), landing pages are the product detail pages. The AI evaluates:
- Page load speed (Core Web Vitals)
- Product information clarity
- Price/availability consistency with Merchant Center feed
- Mobile usability
Critical for Q4: product page load speed under high traffic. AI Max for Shopping can drive significantly more Q4 traffic than Q3 to individual product pages. Pages that load in 4s normally may become 8s under Q4 load. Test load times under simulated Q4 traffic before October.
Specific Landing Page Signals for AI Max
For AI Max for Search: optimize for:
- Clear headline (H1) that matches the search intent you want to capture
- Structured body content (H2s for subtopics) that AI can parse for query relevance
- Fast mobile load (LCP < 2.5s)
- Conversion elements above the fold on mobile
For AI Max for Shopping: optimize for:
- Product title in H1 matching Merchant Center product title
- Price display above the fold and matching feed price
- In-stock availability confirmed in page content
- Reviews/ratings visible (used as quality signal)
- Schema markup (Product schema) for structured data extraction
Across both: no interstitials that block the AI from accessing page content during crawl, no "thin" pages with under 200 words, clear CTA that matches the query intent the campaign targets.
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