Do we trust the word of mouth from people who post online reviews? In general, yes, although there are often a few a) suspicious/fake posts from marketers and b) idiots/asses.
So how do you fix it? Use the power of reviews to review the reviews.
- Amazon: Users rank the reviews as helpful or not, comment on the reviews, and report spam. Amazon lists the most helpful reviews first (not the most recent).
- YouTube: Next to each review is a "thumb up/thumb down" choice and a "report as spam" link. When you look at comments on a video, those with too many thumbs down are filtered out.
How can you let your customers handle quality control of the content on your site?