Â鶹Éç

When you're planning your holiday or shopping for something new, do you like to read other people's opinions? Perhaps you've even written about your good or bad experiences on a review site?

On the internet you will find thousands of amateur reviewers happy to share their views on anything from hotels to restaurants, taxi firms to telephone providers.

Rachel Treadaway-Williams using a laptop in a hotel

Lucy Leonard-Davies from Porthcawl found review sites invaluable when she booked her honeymoon to Jamaica. "I did quite a bit of research on where I wanted to go first of all," she explained to X-Ray's reporter Rachel Treadaway-Williams.

"I decided that Jamaica would be an appropriate place and I wanted to see who else had stayed in that region, and where they'd stayed and the variety of hotels that were available. The reviews that I looked at tended to be the more recent ones which I think are possibly more important to look at because you're looking at the most recent experience and they were all positive."

Lucy found the sites helpful in planning her special trip, but what about the companies on the receiving end of the reviews? Rachel asked hotel manager Huw Hillary, chairman of the Cardiff Hoteliers Association, whether he thought people were truthful when they used these sites.

"I think the guests are," he said. "However, I think people, hotels and restaurants can manipulate them to suit their own purposes and post a couple of fake reviews on their websites. Overall you're only deluding yourself and eventually you'll be caught out."

Like all business owners, he doesn't enjoy bad reviews. "I absolutely hate them!" he admitted. "However, you have to take these things into context. We can have thousands of guests here every week, you can't please all the people all the time."

As review sites have grown in popularity, their significance has too. These days a bad review can mean make or break, and now all kinds of businesses are fighting back. Solicitor Tracey Singlehurst-Ward is dealing with a growing number of cases where companies that feel they've been unfairly criticised are taking legal action.

"The companies are getting edgy because of course once a post is made on the internet and the whole world can see it, their reputation is potentially vastly damaged," she explained.

"It can be repeated across a whole range of websites and even once it's deleted the damage is already done. There are a lot of allegations about competitors or people putting false statements up just intended solely to damage someone's reputation or a businesses reputation. Those who are abusing the system can be pulled up for it in legal terms."

And high profile cases are now starting to hit the headlines. TripAdvisor, the biggest review site, is braced for possible legal action from companies which say the site allows false statements. Although they wouldn't comment on the legal case, TripAdvisor told X-Ray that they have systems in place to make sure reviews are genuine.

Nicola Tudor is an amateur blogger who feels it's important to be impartial and honest. She reviews restaurants for her own website, Cardiff Bites, and we asked her thoughts on the way review sites had grown in popularity.

"It's kind of weird because you wouldn't necessarily listen to the man in the pub and you're having a conversation with your friends and then someone chips in and says, 'Oh no, I wouldn't bother with that'. Traditional word of mouth hasn't disappeared it's just gone online."

And Nicola thinks it's easy to spot when a reviewer has an ulterior motive. "I'd say if it reads like an advert then usually it's a PR company that has sent along a press release," she said. "It's a very lazy way of doing it so if it does read like an advert then I'd be quite wary of it."

So what happens if you've had a bad experience and you want to tell the whole world about it? Well if you're not careful you can be sued.

"If you write something that's false and it's potentially defamatory then someone might choose to sue you in the courts for damages because you've damaged their reputation," Tracey Singlehurst-Ward explained.

"You should avoid using that blogging site or review site as a vent to exaggerate criticism and trying essentially use it for revenge. Try to avoid making statements of fact which aren't supported and make sure everything's phrased as opinion, such as, 'I liked this place', 'I didn't like this, it was because', 'I thought my food was bad', rather than saying 'I had food poisoning' which could potentially be defamatory if it was not true."

Opinions will vary and you will need to be careful. One thing's for sure, review sites are definitely worth checking out, although take some of the advice with a pinch of salt!

Do you use or browse review websites - what do you think of them? Let us know your experiences of review sites below.