 TITLE: Your 9 Most Common Credit Questions, Answered CONTENT: How Can I Improve My Credit Score?\n----------------------------------\nBy understanding how your credit score is calculated, you can reverse engineer a better score. Consider the five criteria FICO® and VantageScore use to determine your score—payment history, credit utilization, length of credit history, credit mix and new credit—and look for ways to optimize.\nMany tactics take time. For instance, you can (and should) maintain a perfect payment history starting today, but any payments made 30 days or more past due or collections you've already experienced will remain on your credit report for seven years from the first date the account became late. If you're looking to improve your score in the short term, paying down outstanding credit card debt can help reduce your credit utilization ratio and thus improve your score. Or consider factoring in on-time phone and utility bill payments using Experian Boost™† to improve your score instantly.\nFor more, see:\n*   How Can I Increase My Credit Score?\n*   Why Did My Credit Score Drop?\n*   Does Experian Boost Work?\n*   How Long Does It Take to Rebuild Credit? END