Partnerships

eHarmony announced today that they have partnered with AOL Personals (which is in BETA). They will be offering their matchmaking services to American Online visitors along with dating and relationship advice through the “eHarmony Boutique”. The interesting thing here is AOL already has a partnership with Match.com. On the AOL Personals homepage both dating services share the same space. AOL tells visitors to use the Search for a Match option (which is powered by Match.com) to give you complete control over your searches and to use the Get Matched option (which is powered by eHarmony) to receive matches to compatible singles. I would be surprised if Match.com was happy about this new eHarmony partnership. They already have a sister site called Chemistry.com which competes with eHarmony directly.

NWA.CO.UK is reporting that Match.com has partnered with Russell Grant Horoscopes. Russell Grant is a popular spot for horoscope enthusiasts in the United Kingdom. You can access the dating service under the Free Dating menu item on the left of the site. Russell Grant Dating is powered by Match.com and allows you to search for members by your star sign. The marketing director of Russell Grant Astrology, is quoted as saying:

This is a unique and exclusive partnership that brings together the leaders in astrology and online dating to give singles the best possible chance of finding love.

Russel Grant Dating is Match.com UK but with a modified Russell Grant Logo at the top of the page. It contains all the functions and features of the normal Match.com dating site. I'm surprised they didn't modify the Match.com partner dating site theme more to make it fit better with the look and feel of Russell Grant Horoscopes.

There are two things I have questions about. Why is the dating link labelled Free Dating, when it is not? You can create a free membership but you not allowed to communicate with members until you pay for a subscription. While there is nothing wrong in paying for a dating service subscription, this is misleading people. The other thing I wondered about is why there is a link at the top of the page that says "Log In to your DatingAgency.com profile". This is even visible when you have logged into Match.com. The link goes to another Russell Grant dating site. I have a feeling this is probably the original dating site before Match.com's partnership. I'm surprised Match.com allowed these two things to happen. It looks unprofessional and is misleading, 2 things Match.com usually does not do.

According to Reuters, Match.com has partnered with two more companies to exclusively offer their internet visitors an online dating service. The first partnership is with the Latin America web portal called Terra. This web portal serves 7 countries and is considered the largest in the region.

The second multimillion dollar partnership is with NineMSN in Australia. This web portal owned by Microsoft and PBL Media receives almost 8 million visitors a month. Match.com also powers the dating service for MSN here in the United States.

This is a smart move by Match.com as internet dating becomes more crowded here at home. It's difficult to start a new business in a foreign country and attract visitors quickly. It is a lot easier and smarter to find a web site with a large amount of traffic in your demographic and partner with them to offer your service. Match.com has the software and knowledge of what works with online dating while the other companies offer their traffic and website. Match.com has been quite successful in the international arena. In the first quarter of this year their international subscribers grew by 8%.

Read our Match Review (match.com) or our Match.com UK Review to find out more information about this service.

Match.com UK will be powering Freeads.co.uk new dating service. This deal will give Freeads users access to millions of singles already on Match.com and it will offer Match.com access to the million plus monthly unique visitors at Freeads.

Duncan Horton, Freeads.co.uk chief executive, commented:

For us partnering with a company of Match.com's calibre to launch our dating section is a huge coup. Rather than relying on our users to populate this new section for us we are able to hit the ground running by offering them access to the millions of singles already registered on Match.com.

This makes sense to me since it is extremely difficult to get a new dating service off the ground these days with all the competition. There was no mention of the cost for Freeads users but I am assuming it will be the same cost as signing up normally to Match.com UK's dating service.

For more information or you can read our Match Review (match.com).