Number of reviews removed from AdWords seller ratings extensions

I noticed that the seller rating extensions in Google AdWords recently got updated. Instead of showing the number reviews collected during the last 12 months, now the review average on a scale from 1-5 is displayed. Typically stars show up when they are gathered by review providers that have agreement with Google (the list can be found here), the average is 3.5 and above and a mimumum of 30 reviews were gathered over a 12 months period. It can only be guessed why this was updated, it looks like a drive towards the quality of the advertiser rather than the quantity of reviews collected. It would make sense though to increase the number of reviews that are necessary to show them.

Zenni Optical Ad