Does Free or Paid Dating Sites Give You Better Results?

Early in February we posted a poll asking our users; on average, which type of online dating site gave you better overall results? Well, the results are in. On May 10, 2009 with 278 votes in total for the poll, 45 percent or 126 voters told us paid dating sites on average gave them better results. On the other hand, 55 percent of the voters gave free dating sites the nod (152 votes). It is not quit an even split, but it is fairly close.

What can both types of dating sites do to improve their results in the poll? I think this comes down to better prevention of scammers operating on dating sites. There are two steps that need to be done here. The first step is when someone joins. Most dating sites allow people from all Countries to join. I think this needs to change, especially in North America where there are only relatively a few Countries. A lot of scammers tend to live in other Countries, especially where the standard of living is not high. Plus, very few members of dating sites in North America are actually looking for singles outside their own Country, let alone their city. To help in this, dating sites like Match and eHarmony should not allow visitors who are using IP addresses from outside North America to join. Additionally, some sort of background check needs to be done on the members personal information, and the profile should be marked once the verification has taken place. Paid dating sites should have the lead in this area since the larger ones make enough money to implement these types of measures. Plus, they already have a form of verification by having people pay for a membership. Payment processing companies need to make sure your information is valid.

If the scammer gets by the first step then the second step needs to take over. This step is better automated and adaptable moderation tools that scan messages looking for members who are intent to scam or defraud others. If found, then the profile needs to be red flagged for a human moderator to review. Once you know a members intentions are not good then kick him or her off.

So how can just paid dating sites improve their results? There are a number of ways but I think the main way to improve paid dating is to open up the communication process. On some sites, paid members will contact someone not knowing that they cannot reply back without paying first. This can go even as far as some services not allowing guest members to view mail messages. This means the member who paid, gets frustrated sitting there not getting a number of potential replies and the guest member not able to see messages and wondering if they are from members or just a welcome message from the dating service. Paid dating sites need to start allowing guest members to reply for free to a paid members message. Instead of charging for more features, paid dating sites need to open the communication process and offer more to members to stay relevant.

So how can just free dating sites improve their results? One answer I think is actual customer service. Unfortunately this costs money and with the recession and online advertising tanking it may not be possible. The other problem with free dating sites is, that there is just so many of them. It is hard for people new to online dating to tell if a free dating site is good or not, especially if the dating site owner has populated his website with fake dating profiles to make it look more popular than it actually is.

While I have removed the poll from the homepage this poll is still open for voting. We will visit it again in 6 months or so to see what the results are at. If you haven't voted yet, go here for to express your opinion.

To see a list of all our dating site reviews, check out our Review List. For just free dating sites, look at our Free Dating Site category.