Match Group

The Wall Street Journal in an article called "Marriage-Maker Claims Are Tied in Knots" attempts to find out if some of the statistics are true, in regards to the number of marriages a dating site claims to have generated. eHarmony is targeted because of their claim that 236 members get married everyday (see Story). I believe this works out to 2% of the total number of Americans who got married last year met through the site. Match.com is also mentioned due to stats they released recently (and then pulled) that says 12 couples got married or engaged everyday on their dating site (see Story).

The author, Carl, in a way defends the dating sites published stats when he says that:

One obstacle to further research is that newlyweds are hard for researchers to find. So online-dating companies looking to tout their success as matchmaking yentas have sought novel ways to enumerate marriages.

Less than 2 percent of Americans get married every year. To perform a survey and to get an accurate sample size 1.76 million phone calls would need to be made says Dr. Gonzaga of eHarmony. That would be a costly endeavor, so dating sites are forced to find creative ways to come up with some marriage numbers. The closest thing to an election-quality poll Carl could find was a Pew Internet & American Life Project survey, which in 2005 reported from a poll of 3,215 adults, that 3 million Americans found a long term relationship (not necessarily marriages) through a dating site.

Every dating site has its own spin on the dating profile format. In this series, I'll take a look at some of the different profile formats and how you can write your best profile for that particular service. PlentyofFish is a free dating service that has skyrocketed in popularity in recent years. It has a very basic profile setup, so it's straightforward to fill it out.

Interests

List your top 6-9 interests here. Why 6-9? The default layout is three columns and you want something even and pleasing to the eye. Three interests aren't quite enough to fill out the box, but more than 9 and it starts to get a little bit like a laundry list.

About me

One of the biggest mistakes I see people making on PlentyofFish is being redundant. In other words, repeating information found elsewhere in the profile. In fact, the profile I chose at random to reference for this article is doing just that. In her statistics it lists her age, height, and location, yet she repeats them again in her profile. This is just wasted space!

This is the internet age, folks. We've been trained to skim and then LEAP to a new page if something seems boring within a few seconds. Save those precious words in your profile for things that haven't already been said.

Your profile is the back cover of the Book of You. Tell that interesting tale that gets people intrigued enough to pick you up, but keep it short and don't give away too much. A little mystery is what make people want to get to know you better!

Even though this says "About me," you will want to write about the type of match you seek here as well. After all, there's no other place in the profile to put it!

First date

What a random choice for a second section. What I'd do here is give potential matches a variety of ideas of places that you'd like to go for a first date. Bonus points if you can keep this section fresh and updated with local events!

For example: "There's a great film festival going on Downtown on Saturdays through the end of the summer. I'd love to go check it out!"

Having a good selection of date ideas puts a potential match at ease. You've done some of the work for them! Instead of suggesting a film festival and wondering if you hate movies, they'll know for sure that you want to go and would enjoy it!

Photos

Be sure your photos for your PlentyofFish profile include a close-up of your face, one full-body shot, and at least two other good photos of yourself. Avoid self-portraits, webcam photos, and group shots when you can and please, please, please, be sure your photos are recent so you are advertising exactly what you look like now.

Good luck going fishing at PlentyofFish! I hope you catch the big one!

For more information on the dating site mentioned in this article, read our PlentyofFish.com review.

Every dating site has its own spin on the dating profile format. In this series, I'll take a look at some of the different profile formats and how you can write your best profile for that particular service. OkCupid is one of the free dating sites available to singles - absolutely no cost to join or use features. They are famous for their crazy quizzes and the "Friend / Enemy" percentages they use to indicate a match (or lack thereof!).

After filling out your basic stats and such, you are faced with the following sections to complete:

My Self-Summary

this is the quick and dirty version of who you are. OKCupid profiles are notoriously long, so brevity is of the essence here. Imagine yourself as a box of cereal on the supermarket shelf and write those few lines that describe you as succinctly as possible while making you sound tasty and worth eating.

What I'm Doing With My Life

This is your area to write about your school, job, kids. Again, keep it brief but interesting.

I'm Really Good At

This one can be a list of the things you excel at doing or you can write a sentence or two about one thing that you do very well.

The First Thing(s) People Usually Notice About Me

If you don't know the answer to this one, poll your friends. Do you stick out because you're really tall/short? Do you have pink hair? Are your fingernails always painted funky colors? Is your wardrobe stuck in the 1940s?

My Favorite Books, Movies, Music, and Food

You don't have to hit all of these. You can do these in a list or a paragraph, but don't make it an exhaustive list. Think top 2 or 3 of the category, not top 20.

The Six Things I Could Never Do Without

Very straightforward. List your top 6. (If you are a guy seeking a girl, putting "sex" in the list doesn't make you witty.)

I Spend a Lot of Time Thinking About

World Peace? How your cell phone works? Why the cable delivery guy is always late? Keep this answer short and either profound or witty. Bonus points if you can make it profound AND witty.

On A Typical Friday Night, I Am

While this does say "typical," if your typical Friday is lounging on your couch flipping through the channels, you may want to stretch the truth and talk about another activity you do semi-frequently on the weekends.

The Most Private Thing I'm Willing To Admit Here

Don't TMI (too much information). You can mention something weird ("My cat insists on following me into the bathroom, no matter what I plan to do in there.) or funny ("I frequently get 80s cartoon theme songs stuck in my head and have been known to be caught humming Mighty Mouse's song in business meetings."). But don't get too personal. That's for later.

You Should Message Me If

This is your call to action - someone read (or skimmed) your profile all the way down to here. What's the last thing you can say that convinces them to email you? If you just say "if you think I'm interesting and worth getting to know" you'll get a lot fewer responses than if you tied it into your previous profile text and said something like "you've ever been caught humming or whistling an entirely inappropriate song for the given situation." This is your last hurrah - make it count!

OkCupid.com allows you to have lots of pictures. I recommend at least 4, but no more than 6. One picture should be a close-up of your face, one full body shot, and the rest can be of your choosing (group shot, action shot, more close-ups, etc).

Best of luck getting Cupid to shoot you! Next in the series... PlentyofFish profiles!

For more information on the dating site mentioned in this article, read our OKCupid.com review.

Update 2020-05-27: Please note that these coupons have expired and there are currently no coupon codes available for Match.com.

We have found a new coupon for the dating site which won our Singles Choice Award (see Story). This promotion gives singles up to a 74% discount on Match.com memberships (depends on subscription term). Memberships are available for 1, 3 and 6 month periods.

Instead of a percentage discount you could instead opt for 3 Days Free at Match.com. The 3 free days really only makes sense if you plan on signing up for a one month membership. If you are planning to sign up with the 3 or 6 month membership then you will save more money with the up to 74% discount mentioned in the first paragraph.

For further details about what makes this dating site so popular with online daters, read our Match.com review for more information. User reviews of Match.com are also accessible from our review page.

Every dating site has its own spin on the dating profile format. In this series, I'll take a look at some of the different profile formats and how you can write your best profile for that particular service. Match.com is one of the biggest online dating sites out there with millions and millions of members. It's no wonder why people join up every day looking for love.

Match has a pretty straightforward profile. The sections to fill out are as follows:

• About me and who I'm looking for
• In my own words
• for fun
• my job
• my ethnicity
• my religion
• my education
• favorite hot spots
• favorite things
• last read

The most important part is the About me and who I'm looking for section. Match requires you to fill out at least a few lines of this before your profile can go live. (Ironically enough, there are tons of profiles that reference the fact that they're writing just enough to qualify. Makes you wonder what kind of boyfriend or girlfriend they'd be if they are only committed to doing the bare minimum!)

You should have at least two paragraphs in this section - the first one detailing yourself, and the second detailing the person you'd like to meet. Remember, your profile is the back cover of the story of your life. Don't give people the whole novel! Write just enough to get them intrigued about your most interesting qualities and activities. When writing about your ideal mate, be specific about the kind of personality you want and state things in the positive.

As for the In my own words section, you need to know that you do not have to fill out ANY of it. Seriously, if your About me and who I'm looking for section is great, you can leave the sidebar totally blank and people will still contact you.

Beware of those sidebar questions, though. Keep your responses to one or two short sentences. If you wax on for too long, the typical reader on the internet will get bored. Once you've published them, check out your profile and edit down any that are longer than 3 lines. Keep things short and sweet. For example, here's how I'd write mine:

for fun

I read, write, and roll d20s. Bonus points if you do, too!

my job

I own my own business writing online dating profiles and other web content.

my ethnicity

Pasty Irish chick, blinding astronauts with the glare from my legs!

my religion

I believe all faiths have a piece of the Truth, but not the whole Truth.

my education

Hamilton College, Class of 2001. Music & Creative Writing double major - would you like fries with that?

favorite hot spots

Anywhere I can get really good Asian food!

favorite things

I'd be completely lost without my laptop, my BlackBerry, and my adorable cats.

last read

Desperately trying to get my RSS reader under 1000... help, I'm drowning in feeds!

Match.com allows you to have a TON of pictures, but at minimum you want four. One picture should be a close-up of your face, one full body shot, and two of your choosing (group shot, action shot, etc).

Best of luck on Match.com! Next in the series... JDate profiles!

For more information on the dating site mentioned in this article, read our Match.com review.

The New York Times seems to be covering a number of dating topics recently. In this article they looked at the marketing of the science behind online dating. A professor of psychology, Jeffrey Lohr is quoted several times in the article. He released a research paper recently which looked into some of the claims from the more popular dating sites (see Story). In summary of his research, Professor Lohr stated:

It seems to me that everybody is marketing their product far beyond the available evidence. There is none to very little effectiveness in the matching process.

The one person he did have praise for is Dr. Helen Fisher of the anthropology department at Rutgers. She helped Chemistry.com create their profile questions and matching system. Dr. Fisher based her work for Chemistry on her own published and peer reviewed research about how love and matchmaking works. Unlike Chemistry, most dating sites have very little science that has been published to back up the claims of their service and matchmaking system.