Awards

Recipient of Gold
Match.com

Recipient of Silver
eHarmony

Recipient of Bronze
Zoosk

The 2012 Dating Sites Reviews Single's Choice Award poll was closed on January 1st, 2012. It ran for 3 months and received just over 650 votes. The first question of this poll asked which paid dating site would you recommend for our Single’s Choice Award. This post takes a look at the results. In our opinion this award is our most important award and this is why it is the last one we give out. This award is voted on by our visitors which collectively spend much more time on dating sites and run into many more situations than we do. We deal with online dating sites everyday here at DSR but our visitors experiences make them the true experts.

For 2012 we listed the top online dating sites for you to vote on. There was eight in the list in which three will receive an award, Gold for first, Silver for second and Bronze for the third most votes.

The recipient of the Gold 2012 Single's Choice Award is Match.com. They received 30.5 percent of the vote which works out to 199 votes. 5 of the dating sites received under 10 percent of the vote which shows Match.com has a huge lead in popularity. Match.com also received our Editor's Top Pick - Overall award earlier this year.

The recipient of the Silver 2012 Single's Choice Award is eHarmony. This matchmaking site received 23 percent of the vote which is a half percent more than last year. eHarmony also received an award for Editor's Top Pick - Match System which is no surprise. This is eHarmony’s 5th year in a row winning this award.

The recipient of the Bronze 2012 Single's Choice Award is Zoosk. Zoosk has been around since 2007 and has won this award once before in 2010. This year Zoosk received 78 votes which is 12 percent of the total vote.

Here are this year's standings for the Single's Choice award for all dating sites in the poll.

1. Match.com
2. eHarmony
3. Zoosk
4. Chemistry
5. Lavalife
6. Badoo
7. PerfectMatch.com
8. Date.com

We here at Dating Sites Reviews (DSR) would like to thank everyone who voted for the 2012 Single's Choice Award. The results of the poll help our visitors in 2013 to figure out which service is best for them. It also helps us tailor the needs of our users and better report on the sites and services that interest them.

Recipient
PlentyOfFish.com

The 2012 Dating Sites Reviews Single's Choice Award poll launched in the afternoon of October 1st, 2012. In 2 months we had over 300 votes and by the new year when the poll closed January 1st, 2013 we had 652 votes cast. This poll on the best free dating site is important as it is voted on by you, our visitors. The is because our visitors are also the members that make up these dating sites and you and your experiences are ultimately what makes a dating site successful.

For this survey we included 8 of the top free dating sites. A dating site is considered free when a member can create a profile, search for matches, and communicate with all members via mail for no cost and with no credit card required. A free dating can offer an upgraded membership that can include other perks but it must keep the core dating site experience free.

The 2012 Single's Choice Award for a Free Dating Site goes to Plenty Of Fish (POF). This is the fourth straight year that POF has won this award. This year they received 30 percent of the vote which is 197 of the votes. POF seems to have experience a bit of a drop in popularity since last year when they had 39 percent of the vote.

Here are the final results of the poll:

1. Plenty Of Fish (POF)
2. OkCupid
3. DateHookUp.com
4. Meetup
5. Craigslist
6. BookOfMatches
7. Mingle 2
8. Matchdoctor.com

OkCupid came in second place again this year. This was the closest race we ever had for the top spot. OkCupid had almost 27 percent of the vote which is just 3 percent off of POF. As a comparison the difference in 2011 between these two dating sites was 15 percent of the vote. Third place went to DateHookup which was just 3.5 percent off of second place, again very close. In 2011 DateHookup ranked fourth and was over 14 percent off of second place. All of the other dating sites in the poll scored under 10 percent of the vote. There is quite a large difference this year between the top 3 dating sites and the rest.

Read our review of PlentyOfFish.com for more information about this online dating service or visit Plenty of Fish directly.

Recipient
OkCupid

The recipient of the Editor's 2012 Top Pick - Free Award goes to OkCupid. This service has always been geared towards singles finding long-term relationships. This is in part due to the fact that it has always promoted it’s matching system, the mathematicians behind it and their member tests. The tests are created by members to help in the match process and can be about almost anything.

While this service is not the biggest free dating site, its members argue that it produces the best matches. The reason for this is the match questions and member tests. Most questions have 4 parts:

• The question
• The answer (multiple choice)
• The question’s importance to you
• An explanation of what the question means

No question is required for OkCupid to produce matches but the more you answer truthfully the greater chance you will meet someone special by searching for members with a higher average match score. Questions can be marked private and you can change answers when needed. When viewing someone’s profile you can also compare your answers with their public answers. Profiles also let you know roughly how often the person replies to a message. This is useful to let you know what chance you have of receiving a reply back to a message you send.

OkCupid qualifies as a free dating site but it does have a paid upgrade option. The free membership allows you to create a profile, search and communicate with members. The monthly paid upgrade gives you additional search abilities, more privacy options and marks your profile as an A-List user. The paid upgrade also removes all advertisements and allows you access to rating pages and to see who likes you.

Read our review of OkCupid for more information about this online dating service or visit OkCupid directly.

This Year's Runner Up for this award is: Plenty of fish

Recipient
RSVP

The recipient of the 2012 Editor's Top Pick - Australian Award goes to RSVP. RSVP.com.au is Australia’s most visited online dating site. They have more than 1,200 new singles joining everyday through their website and via the mobile phone dating applications.

Mobile dating is now a major part of RSVP. Not only do they have a mobile web version of their dating site but they offer a dating app on both the iPhone and Android smartphones. With the dating app you can search for singles using a wide range of options, view and update your profile and send and receive emails and kisses. You can also see who has viewed your profile and who has read your email. Purchasing of stamps and managing your RSViP subscription is also possible along with contacting customer support.

RSVP is for singles living in Australia only. It is free to join as a member and reply to messages but you must purchase stamps to send messages via chat or email. Using stamps allows you to pay as you go. With 1 stamp you have 30 days of unlimited contact with that person, and that person with you.

Read our review of RSVP for more information about this dating service or visit RSVP directly.

This Year's Runner Up for this award is: Match.com

Recipient
Passion.com

The Editor's Top Pick - Sexy Award goes to Passion.com. This site is part of the FriendFinder Network and has 10’s of millions of active members from around the globe. Passion.com has the most members in the United States, followed by the United Kingdom and then Canada.

This dating site has become much more like a social network in the last year. Profiles now have statuses and you can write testimonials about other members. You can even create your own friend mini network. One of the more popular features is blogging. You can create your own homepage and then write posts about anything that interests you. There are currently over 500,000 blogs with almost 19 million posts. Members can view your blog posts, pictures and also write comments.

Passion.com is an ideal website for people who are interested in an intimate encounter or hookup. There are many ways to connect with members via chatting, talking on the phone, webcams, or participating in interest groups. This service is free to join and reply to messages but costs a monthly fee to send members messages.

Read our review of Passion.com for more information about this dating service or visit Passion.com directly.

There was no runner up in 2012 for this award.

Recipient
Lavalife

The 2012 Editor's Top Pick - Canadian Award goes to Lavalife. This Canadian owned and operated dating site has been around for 12 years now and sees about 40,000 new singles register every week.

Lavalife is a little different than most other dating sites since it has 3 distinct communities based on the type of relationship you are looking for. The communities are Dating, Relationship and Intimate. When you create a profile you can add it to one or more of these communities. Searching is also divided by these communities which makes it easier to find singles who may only be interested in just casual dating, exploring a long-term relationship, or having that intimate encounter. Lavalife also allows free members to respond to paid members emails and IMs. This means if you purchased a subscription you know every member on Lavalife can respond to your communication without paying. Most of the other popular dating services do not allow a free member to exchange emails with a paid member.

Lavalife has remained popular with Canadians. They offer a 7 day free full trial that will allow you to send and receive emails and instant messages. With this offer it is easy to give Lavalife a try to see if it is the right fit for you without spending a dime.

Read our review of Lavalife for more information about this dating service or visit Lavalife directly.

This Year's Runner Up for this award is: Match.com Canada