Google is now showing Seller Ratings (the rating stars that appear in ads via automated extension) by country, and it has also changed the requirements, dictating that businesses must have 100 or more reviews per country for their reviews to be eligible to display in those regions.

In other words, now your customers will only see the ratings that are sourced from the country they’re currently in (instead of all locations showing the same rating globally) and only if you meet the 100 review threshold in that particular location.

A new dropdown also lets users to change the country setting, so they can view your seller ratings for various different countries.

Prior to this change, businesses had to have a total of 150 reviews worldwide for ratings to display, and all their customers would see the same rating regardless of location.

Why Should You Care?

Seller ratings affect your ad performance in a number of ways. In the past, Google has said ads with Seller Ratings (above 3.5 stars) see 10 % higher click-through rates than ads without.

Showing ratings only from the users’ country will provide them with a more relevant experience, but there are possible drawbacks for businesses.

Companies can no longer rely on good performance in a few select countries to bring up their rating averages. It also means that if you have less than 100 reviews submitted from a searcher’s location then your ratings will not show – which could damage your campaign performance there.

This change is already in effect. To learn more, you can see how your own ratings extension is doing in the Automated extensions report under the Extensions tab in the Google Ads UI.