Several years ago I tried a few of the big, commercial online dating sites. Some of the policies and practices of those sites seemed so strongly geared towards profit rather than towards helping people find compatible partners that I was quite annoyed. The fact that these sites were profiting from lonely single people did not sit well with me. I became determined to try to do something about it.

So, at long last, I have completed the development of my own dating website. The web pages are not fancy, but there is a lot more sophistication to the site than meets the eye. I have a lot of experience dealing with large, complex data sets, and I know how to program.

I structured the site to work the way I, as a user, would want it to work. It is designed for people who are serious about finding compatible partners. It is also designed to serve the best interests of the user base, NOT to make money. Some features:

1. It is 100% free to use, and I hope to keep it that way. I will change the policy only if: (i) I can no longer afford to keep it free; or (ii) the site attracts too many fake/non-serious users by being free. Also, the site
currently has NO ads. I may put some in eventually, but I do not intend to let ads on the site negatively impact the user experience significantly. Again, the site is intended to serve the user base, NOT to make money.

2. It is a matching service, i.e., a user does not browse through a huge database of profiles. Rather, a user provides information about herself or himself and about the type of person she or he wants to meet, and then a program (which I wrote) runs to match mutually compatible people. The only people you see on the site are people with whom you are mutually compatible. I figure that I can save people a lot of time and energy this way (both on the sending and receiving sides). I hope I will also cut down on scammers this way. Plus the profile info. you have to fill out about yourself and your desired match is pretty comprehensive, which I hope will also weed out the non-serious/fake users.

3. I have a feature built into the site such that only people who are active continue to get matches. Thus any new match you receive is compatible with you AND still actively trying to meet people.

Right now, I have two problems with the site:

1. I don't know what kind of impression it makes on an outside user. In particular, I am curious if the site looks too amateurish to attract users. If so, I could use feedback on how to change its appearance. (I am not a
website developer by formal training, although at this point I am pretty proficient with the basics.)

2. I have no idea how to best market the site. I frankly think that my site is the best one out there -- I designed it to have the exactly features I want, so it could hardly be otherwise -- but it isn't going to be useful to anybody if it doesn't gain a decent sized user base. Any ideas on how and where to best spread the word?

I must confess that I just found this forum solely for the purpose of getting feedback on my site. From what I have seen, the people who post on here seem serious, but I am not quite ready to post the URL of my site here. If you are interested in helping me out, you can write to me at: newdatesite (at) yahoo (dot) com (I created this email address just for this purpose.)

I am genuinely trying to develop the best dating website for users that I possibly can. I hope you will help me. (And yes, this post is completely serious.)

Thank you.

Here is the name of the new dating website I created: BrightSpotDating.com

For those of you who have yet to find an online dating site that you think works well, you now have an opportunity to help me create the best dating website possible.

If you have comments or suggestions for the site, you can contact me via the "Contact Us" button on the website, or you can email me (at newdatesite (at) yahoo (dot) com), or if you don't like either of those options, you can post to this thread.

I have now read many of the other threads on this site. I have seen all of the complaints about the other online dating sites. I have tailored my site to try to reduce or eliminate as many of the problems of those other sites as I could. Maybe my effort is too small or too late in the game to have an impact, but it might also be the best chance that any of us have to create something that truly serves the best interests of the online singles community.

Please, let's make a positive difference.

While I admire your honesty, I doubt you'll make much of an impression, and here are a couple of reasons why.
1. For-profit dating companies tend to drown little guys like you out.
2. 99% of singles (even the ones who say they're lonely or desperate) regard a search for a life partner as a casual game, something which isn't supposed to be taken seriously.
3. So many people have been scammed by for-profit dating businesses, that a large percentage of us have given up altogether.

You see, the factors are beyond your control... I know, because I got fed up and thought I could start a thriving local offline singles club. I ran into all 3 of the above problems. I stopped looking for someone to share my life with, because it felt like I was working at some job and never getting paid for it.

Even if you wanted to be evil about it, and create a for-profit site full of fake profiles designed to rob singles of their money without ever matching them up, so many people have gotten fed up with the whole dating scene that there's no money in the game anymore.

Did you ever run any meetings?

I ran exactly 3. Dozens of people called and e-mailed, but only 2 showed up.
However, I did finally learn how to tie a tie...

Well, Marty, I can't say that I was especially optimistic that my website would be successful -- I really didn't know -- but I felt compelled to give it my best shot. If enough people get the word that my site is genuinely there to serve them, then maybe the site will get a large enough user base that a lot of great matches will come out of it. Despite your pessimism, I hope YOU will consider registering on my site. Even if you think the odds are small, you (or anyone) has little to lose beyond the 30 or so minutes of time it takes to complete the profile questions. My site is easier and a lot less time consuming or stressful than most because it: (i) finds compatible matches for you; and (ii) enables people to express mutual interest in each other before an exchange even gets started. Once you answer all of the profile questions, there is no need or even reason to log in again unless and until compatible matches are found for you. It can't get much easier than that. The online dating market is still huge. People continue to sign up on sites all of the time. I maintain that my site is (in my opinion, at least) the best one out there, and it's free. So as far as I am concerned, it's just a matter of marketing -- of getting the word out about it. Which I know is hard to do over the deafening blare of the large, commercial sites, but I am trying. I can still use all of the help I can get.

It's only my observation, but I think one of the main reasons why so many dating sites aren't taken seriously, is because they don't require you to show up at one of their offices in person and flash some ID. That would sure scare me off, if I was just some joker who wanted to screw around with the system.

Marty, what you propose is of course impossible to implement in practice, but consider this: my site is designed better for keeping "scammers" away than just about any other dating site. I can't prevent users from lying in their profiles, of course, but people with ulterior motives who post fake profiles will probably stay away from my site. For one thing, each user must go through the somewhat tedious (if only one-time) process of answering the profile questions before they get any matches, and that process, by design, would be quite difficult to automate in a script. Even more significantly, users can contact only those people with whom they are matched, so the number of people a scammer could contact would be very limited. I don't think a scammer would find it worth the effort on my site. Plus, I am obviously going to do my best to remove and then block any scammers once they are discovered. My site may not be for everyone, and the web pages may not be as slick and shiny as those of the big, commercial sites, but I maintain that mine is the best dating site out there. I would love to see the operators of this review site start to promote it -- and 100% free dating websites in general -- but I suspect it is not in their interest to do so.

Also, pay attention to this post about dating website development - https://www.cleveroad.com/blog/how-to-build-a-dating-website