Does Google view pages or websites with a higher number of reviews as higher quality than those without?  John Mueller answered this question in yesterday’s hangout.

Do note that when he answers, he does add the caveat that this may be different from how the local search results do their rankings, such as in the local 3-pack.

As far as I know, no the number of reviews are not a ranking factor.  So it might be different with local, but with web search,  that’s not a ranking factor.

On the other hand, it these reviews are on your pages, then that might be content that we can pick up, that we can show in search, and use as a ranking factor there.

Of course, there is also the role that things such as the review markup in the search results play in regards to CTR, as many people have seen that their CTR from the search results increases when review data and stars are shown in the search results  But Google has said that markup in the search results is not a ranking factor either. Having it show up is often a sign that Google considers the site to be higher quality though.

As for local results specifically, many believe that reviews do play a part in the local specific ranking algorithm.  But for local sites ranking in the organic search results (as opposed to the local packs) those reviews won’t make a difference.