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DateHookup is a completely FREE dating website. No need to pay for anything. They even state that right on every page: "100% free dating site". So there's absolutely NO surprises. You can search, message, and browse profiles as much as you want.

The graphics of the site aren't very sophisticated. Plenty of Fish isn't sophisticated in appearance either, but POF has a very clean, simple, and streamlined look. DateHookup looks more outdated, and isn't all that clean. The graphics are simple or nonexistant (simple text links). This looks like a site that would have been fresh ten years ago, not today. If you can get over the cheap look and feel of things, the features you want and need are all there.

The best of these features is the search. It allows you to specify as little or as much information as you want. In fact, I would go so far as to suggest that the "advanced" search function is superior to other sites including OKCupid and even Plenty of Fish. Even the quick search is properly balanced with distance, age ranges, and other criteria... it's a very lean and mean version of the more advanced search, but the quick search still has a lot of options while living up to the name of being "quick" and easy.

Once you've set your search parameters, the results are displayed in two nice columns per page, with thumbnail pics, online status, age, location, distance from you, and even tells you if there are more pictures. There are even pulldown menus to reorder the results based on distance from you, last online, or youngest to oldest (or vice versa), most photos, newest profiles, and even one called "best match", although I am still not sure what the criteria is for that. The point is that you have OPTIONS, and these options are easily configurable and as they claim, 100% FREE.

The profiles are simple, and similar to Plenty Of Fish in that they have basic stats (location, distance, age, height, ethnicity, politics, income, has kids, etc.). There are almost the same stats as POF provides with the exception of a few such as "Wants Children" or "Pets?". I'm not going to list every single difference, but what's missing aren't that big of a deal. They would be nice to have, but you can work without them.

The profile gives you the option to "chat", which is really just a private message and not a real-time chat feature. It also gives you an option to "wink", which just places a message in the other person's inbox that they received a "wink" from so-and-so. It's similar to Tagged's wink in that it's provided as a way for someone to let someone else know they're interested without having to send them an actual message. With Tagged, the wink is pretty much available most of the time because most people don't know where to go to disable it. With DH, the wink is often crossed out because it's much easier for users to find the setting to disable the option for people.

Along with sending a "chat" message or a wink are the options to add a friend or a favorite. The favorite feature I can understand, as POF and OKC both have favorites. It seems you are limited to 9 pages of favorites, which show up like any other search. That means 8 profiles per page, at 9 pages which comes out to just over 70 favorites. Some sites have many more. Why anyone would need so many eludes me.

The add friend feature to me makes little sense on a dating site. Tagged lets you add friends, but Tagged is a hybrid site. It's one part dating, one part social networking. DH is much more oriented towards dating. So what can added friends do? If you set your profile to invisible, only friends you've added can see your profile.

The "about me" section is really the only section where you are able to write something. It's not the largest word limit but it's enough to get your point across. It's a bit less than the word limit for POF, and a lot less than what OKC allows. Then again, it's the opposite of OKC... OKC has a LOT of areas you can write thoughts in, broken into sections, and even their Q&A areas allow you the option to explain your answers. POF has an "About Me", and a "First Date" and an area for interests keywords. DH has an "About Me", and an area to display keywords. It also displays what age range you're interested in.

NOW... here's an important point. Regardless of what age range someone lists, ANYONE can contact anyone. There is no arbitrary restrictions set by the admin on what age is appropriate for dating. If you're 60 and you want to you can have a conversation with an 18 year old if that person is willing to. On the flip side, you can't block anyone, ever. In theory you could contact the admins if someone is harassing you, but you have no option to simply keep them from messaging you in the meantime. So there's complete freedom at the cost of security features. I personally would prefer this over POF's recent removal of freedoms to the point where the admin dictates who should and shouldn't date (and never talk).

Pictures are of course an important part of a profile, and DH lets you have up to 20 pictures uploaded with captions. Yes, I said 20! These pictures can even be rated. That's where the good news ends. The antiquated look and feel of the site now finds an actual problem. Because the site is formatted to fit in a small area, the graphics are limited in size. This is why the search results are laid out the way they are, and unfortunately why the maximum image sizes are what you might expect from websites a decade ago. Some of the images are also grainy, which suggests something in the way they process images is primitive and old by today's web standards. If you are good at using an image editor to crop and resize, then you will be alright, but why should you have to do that?

The pictures are part of the cheap feel of the site on the whole, but the features are numerous and completely free. There are yet still more features, including a "Meet Me" feature that works exactly like POF's (yes, no, and maybe options), and like POF you can follow the picture from Meet Me to the profile itself. You also have some display options to show who you selected YES to, who you mutually matched with, who wants to meet you but you haven't seen yet, and who hasn't chosen you but you chose them already. So again, a really well done feature.

There are also discussion forums... different subjects like dating, sex, age range specific, location specific, etc. There's also a "status" you can post, but only people looking for your gender will see it on a long list of other people's statuses.

The mobile app works smoothly, and the reason for that is it IS simple. All you are really getting is a modified web browser with special dedicated buttons at the bottom. It loads the standard desktop version of DH into it, and WOW, wouldn't you know it? That limited looking layout for desktop actually fits PERFECT into a mobile browser app! Hmmm... it quickly becomes obvious that the cheap look and feel and narrow layout of the desktop version is so that it will look good on a mobile device. When you load Dh into any other web browser it looks and works identical to the "app". The only advantage to the app is that there is a push notification function that will tell your device you received a message, a wink, someone viewed you, or wants to meet you. If you have email notifications and email push, you don't really need that. So is the app worth it? Ehhh... maybe. Maybe not. Is it needed? Not at all. You can operate exactly the same from any mobile browser. The advantage to the site design is it looks good on any mobile device, but that means it sucks on the desktop monitor. When I expand my window to full, DH takes up the middle third of the window. That's nuts.

Still.. DH is FEATURE-LADEN, and 100% FREE. Searching is as easy or comprehensive as you want it to be, and the Meet Me feature works well. 20 images allows per profile! Reasonable stats and a reasonable character limit on the "About me" section. Despite the poor look of the site, that should be enough to make it at least 4 out of 5 stars, right?

Unfortunately, there just aren't that many people on the site. Sure, you will call up a lot of results sometimes, but when were they logged in last? A lot of people signed up months or even a year ago, and haven't been back since or in a long time. Active users are only a handful per age range within a 50 mile radius, and you see the same people come up in searches over and over and over again. The active user base is not very solid. POF and OKC cast a massive shadow over DH in this point of concern. You would think that with all DH has to offer, and that it's 100% free, more people would sign up and use the service, right?

The thing is, it's weak link in the chain is indeed it's look and feel. Sure, it's easy to use. But people like CLEAN and PROFESSIONAL. And while POF isn't as snazzy as OKC or some of the scam date pay sites, even POF has a clean and pretty interface that looks just as good on a desktop computer as it does in their custom-designed mobile app. It's obvious when logged into either that work as been done to bring you a solid product. With DH, it feels like look and feel are neglected almost completely. I'm guessing this is a large part of why the userbase is simply not what it should be. Given a redesign that retained all the features but looked and felt more professional, DH would have a real shot at taking a larger portion of the dating scene user base, but until that happens, those who use DH will have a very limited selection of people to choose from. And ultimately, this is a CRITICAL element of ANY dating site, no matter how good or bad their features are.

Because of that fact, DateHookup receives just 3 out of 5 stars ***--

Maybe with time that will change.

I had always wondered why DateHookup never updated their dating site. I had been using them for years right up to 2011 when I switched over to POF and never saw any real changes in how the site looked or really any new features to speak of.

With how competitive the dating industry is you would expect them to be contently adding new things. I wonder what happened?

Money, mostly. Updating the look and feel of the website is one thing, but doing that would force them to create an actual mobile app instead of the fake facade they have now. That's a LOT harder. Web tech is fairly simple, and there are a lot of support mechanisms for it. The mobile app community has that, too, but for older developers who haven't jumped to the mobile side of things. The web-based "app" means it was easy for them to make it work on either an iOS of Android device. A new app would mean completely independent code for both.

In the end, someone will have to funnel money and/or LOTS of personal time into it to literally work over every inch of the destop version's layout and look, and then develop a REAL, non-web based mobile app that looks and feels good.

Will it happen? Who knows. Until then, DH will have a very limited interest group.

True except I read on some blog somewhere I think that their traffic is growing.

Date Hookup will also probably get a boost from POF if they actually go through with the threat and remove the "Intimate Encounters" relationship type. If you can't hookup with others directly on POF, I am sure some will move to another dating site. With hookup in it's name and being free, Date Hookup would be the best option.

-=Racket=-

Datehookup has a Alexa traffic rank of around 3000 and it has been rising slowly. Not many dating sites can say that beyond Match.com, POF and Okcupid which are above the 700 mark. Even eharmony is not far off at 2200 global rank.

I think Datehookup is a quality dating site and as you said the only real free one of the bunch.

From a long time Datehookup member.