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Prensa Cheese, also called Costeno, is made in an artisanal way from raw cow's milk in the Costa Chica region of the state of Guerrero. In order to know the characteristics of Mexican artisanal cheeses, the objective of this research was to analyze the changes in the count of aerobic mesophilic bacteria (AMB), total coliform (TCs) microorganisms, lactic acid bacteria (LAB) and coagulase-positive staphylococci (CPS), during the ripening (5, 30, 60 and 90 d) of Prensa cheeses, made by four different cheese factories (A, B, C and D) of Cuajinicuilapa, Guerrero, Mexico. A portion (25 g) of each cheese sample was homogenized with peptone diluent (225 mL) and dilutions from 10-1 to 10-6 were prepared with which 3M™ Petrifilm™ plates were sown. After incubating under different conditions, depending on the type of microorganism, AMB, TCs, LAB and CPS counts were made. The results showed that as the ripening time of the Prensa Cheese progressed, the microbial load decreased: AMB from 4 to 2, TCs from 6 to 3, LAB from 6 to 2 and CPS from 5 to 2 log10 CFU g-1. The changes in the counts of the bacterial groups studied can be attributed to the physicochemical and microbiological transitions typical of cheese maturation and to the characteristics of the microbiota present in each of the cheese factories. The results of this research provide elements for the microbial characterization of Mexican artisanal cheeses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]