On August 8, 2021, Search advocate John Mueller confirmed that customer reviews are not a ranking factor. While Google does show information about customer reviews in search results, such as aggregate star ratings, they are not a factor for determining the ranking of web content. Mueller says: ‍ “As far as I know we don’t use the number of customers or reviews when it comes to web search, with regards to ranking. Sometimes we do pull that information out and we might show it as kind of a rich result in the search results.” ‍ However, customer reviews are taken into consideration in Google Local Search Ranking, which is Google Map in this case. In Google My Business support article “How Google determines local ranking” it states that ‍ Local results are based primarily on relevance, distance, and prominence. A combination of these factors helps us find the best match for your search. Prominence refers to how well known a business is. Some places are more prominent in the offline world, and search results try to reflect this in local ranking. Prominence is also based on information that Google has about a business, from across the web, like links, articles, and directories. Google review count and review score factor into local search ranking. More reviews and positive ratings can improve your business' local ranking. Your position in web results is also a factor, so search engine optimization (SEO) best practices apply.