POF (Plenty of Fish)

The 2011 Dating Sites Reviews Single's Choice Award poll launched October 1st, 2011. By January we had almost 1000 votes cast beating the previous year by just under 200 votes. For the last 3 years we have asked our visitors to recommend the best free dating site. We consider a free dating site one that allows members to create a profile, search for members and communicate with any member by mail messages. A free dating site in our poll may offer paid features but the basic dating features one would need to actually find and communicate with someone must be available to all members for free.

The 2011 Single's Choice Award for a Free Dating Site goes to Plenty Of Fish (POF). This dating site continues to win this award year after year. They received over 39 percent of the vote in 2011 with 388 votes. This is an increase of 6 percent when compared to 2010.

Here are the final results of the poll:

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

OkCupid came in second this year with almost a quarter of all votes (237), followed by Craigslist with just under 10 percent of the vote. Craigslist fell by one position this year but it was almost two since DateHookup.com had only one vote less than Craigslist at 95 votes. This was all followed closely by BookOfMatches with just over 8 percent of the vote, which is 80 votes. Finally Matchdoctor.com and Mingle 2 brought up the rear with 49 votes and 42 votes respectively (under 5% each).

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

The dating site Plenty Of Fish or POF.com as they like to be called now is the recipient of the Editor's Top Pick - Free Award. The site has millions of members and has on average 30,000 new people joining every day. It is by far the largest free dating site on the internet and the amount of different types of single people you can meet on this service is huge.

2011 was a big year for POF. One of the main complaints about the service before was the look and feel of the website. Well this changed in 2011 with a completely redesign site. While the colors did not change much the new layout portrays POF as a much more modern and professional service. The instant messaging service was also retooled and reintroduced in 2011 (the chat system was dropped surprisingly in 2009 for some reason). Plenty of Fish also is now available in 4 languages. Besides English, French, Spanish and German versions is offered. Finally the POF dating app received a number of updates throughout the year and is now available not only for the iOS, but Android and Windows 7 now.

The one dating site everyone checks out is POF.com. It offers enough free features that members can browse, connect and communicate with other members without paying a cent (there are additional paid features available). If you are new to the world of online dating, you should definitely check them out.

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

This Year's Runner Up for this award is: OkCupid

POF reported on their blog that it was a good year for the dating site. They said that it nearly double in size (I am assuming here that they mean the number of members in their database) and that they hit a record of 50 thousand signups in a single day earlier this month.

Other big moments in 2011 for POF were:

• POF is now available in multiple languages
• Hired Administrators and a Tech Team
• Created a new POF chat system (designed in house)
• Name changed from Plenty of Fish to POF
• Site Redesigned
• New POF Apps for Mobile

For more information you can check out the POF blog and to find out more about this dating service you can read our POF review.

2012 is upon us, and so is an annual rush to join online dating sites in the new year.

It's known as the Holiday Effect - the 15 to 20 percent increase in online daters from December to February. Every year online dating sites experience a surge in membership over the holiday season, as singles who didn't have someone to kiss under the mistletoe or at midnight on New Year's Eve turn to the Internet for a fresh start in the new year.

There are a number of reasons that January has become such a busy month for online dating. New Years resolutions are on everyone's mind, focusing many people's attention on improving their current relationships or finding a partner if they're single. The idea of making a fresh start for the new year is also a strong motivator that draws traffic to online dating sites, as is the pressure from family and friends to settle down that singles often experience during the holidays.

"There is also the anticipated Valentines Day event which many single people dread more than any other day of the year," says Penny Russell, a spokesperson for a single parent dating site, "and this often spurs them into action and a determination to seek out a new partner before that day arrives."

Doree Lewak, author of The Panic Years: A Guide to Surviving Smug Married Friends, Bad Taffeta and Life on the Wrong Side of 25 Without a Ring, believes that the pressure to be attached during this time of year is especially strong on women. "Women still feel huge pressure around the holidays," she told USA Today, "and certainly exacerbated by New Year's - to have a date. I don't think that moment has passed."

Dating sites all across the Web experience the Holiday Effect from both men and women, from Match.com who say that their busiest season is December 26 to February 14, to PlentyOfFish.com who report a 15% spike in sign ups and a 20% increase in activity from current users during that period.

And it's not just the dating sites themselves that benefit from the Holiday Effect. As more and more members join the sites, the pool of potential dates increases dramatically, improving everyone's chance of finding love in the new year. Many dating sites respond to this trend by offering special rates around the holiday season, so if you're in the market for a membership take advantage of their holiday gift and start the new year off right.

If you are interested in finding a service to join this year, you should take a look at our list of reviewed dating sites or try our dating site search tool.

According to OPW Plenty of Fish had a Christmas party in which 40 employees went to a high class resort for 2 days and nights. It's good to see that the company values their employees. One of the many ways in which a company can help drive success is to make sure that their employees are happy and passionate about the company's product.

By the way, the last time we had an employee count at POF was in 2009 and it was only 4. They certainly have grown in a few short years.

So how many people visit Plenty of Fish (or POF as now the dating service likes to be called) in a month? Unfortunately they did not release that number but they did share some other related statistics which may help us figure it out. In November of this year the dating site had 6 billion page views and over 32 billion images served. According to Alexa, in the last 3 months the average page view per user was about 30. So this would mean that Plenty of Fish had about 200 million visits in the month of November (6 billion / 30) (this includes repeat visitors). Now Alexa.com statistics are not always exact but at least this gives you a rough idea.

We also found out that instant messaging on POF produced almost 30 billion page views. All of this traffic (including the actual dating site) is run off of just 11 web servers in which it is estimated 6 are only needed. So, what is the total cost to run the web services for POF? Well, according to the Plenty of fish blog it is just shy of $70 thousand Canadian a month.

To find out information about the dating site please read our review of Plenty of Fish