Here is the summary of the 9th annual Dating Sites Reviews Choice Awards. These awards honour the best dating services of 2015 (includes websites and apps) in 11 different categories. These will be the sites and apps worth checking out in 2016 if you are thinking of trying online dating.

Our top award is the Single's Choice Award and is decided by a public poll that all visitors can vote in. This poll ran from the beginning of October 2015 until January 2016. The poll asks 2 questions. The first questions asks you to recommend your choice for the top dating service from a selection of the eight leading dating services on the internet. The top three dating services who receives the most votes will be the recipient of a Gold, Silver, and Bronze award. The second question is similar, but it asks you to recommend your selection from eight of the most popular free dating sites. With the free category there is only a gold award.

Single's Choice Award

Recipient Match.com

Our Gold Single's Choice Award for 2015 goes to Match.com. Match continues to win this award showing that their popularity continues to grow even after being in business for 20 years.

For full award information see the article: 2015 Dating Sites Reviews Single's Choice Award

Recipient eHarmony

Our Silver Single's Choice Award of 2015 goes to eHarmony. If you want to fine a long-term relationship and want to see matches based on your personality then this veteran dating service could be the one for you.

For full award information see the article: 2015 Dating Sites Reviews Single's Choice Award

Recipient Christian Mingle

The 2015 Bronze Single's Choice Award recipient is Christin Mingle. Christian Mingle last won this award in 2013. If your faith is important to you then you will want to meet other like minded singles and Christian Mingle is where you will find them.

For full award information see the article: 2015 Dating Sites Reviews Single's Choice Award

Recipient Plenty of Fish

The 2015 Single's Choice Award for a Free Site recipient is POF. It is no surprise that POF won this award again. They continue to be one of the most popular free online dating websites and dating apps (both iOS and Android).

For full award information see the article: 2015 Dating Sites Reviews Single's Choice Award - Free Site

Happn, a France-based dating app that uses geolocation to connect singles who cross paths in everyday life, has reached a major milestone: 10 million members.

The app works much like Tinder, but on a hyperlocal scale. When you walk by another user, their profile is added to the top of your feed. Every potential match you see was near you at some point during the day. The more you scroll, the further back in time you go. Tap a heart to like the profiles that catch your eye and dismiss the rest by tapping a cross. If there's a mutual match, you can start chatting for free.

“When we launched Happn in 2014, we aimed to fill a void in the online dating scene by offering a way for people to connect with those they’ve crossed paths with in real-life – and really, a way to put the spontaneity back into dating,” said co-founder and CEO Didier Rappaport, in a statement.

The strategy seems to be working. Happn is reportedly on track to reach 30 million users by the end of the year.

Millions of happy daters aren't the only big news for the app. Happn has also announced a new voice feature that will allow users to send audio recordings up to one minute long to each other. Happn hopes that the clips will make it easier for users to showcase their unique personalities before meeting up.

Rappaport said in a statement: "This new voice feature provides our members with another opportunity to connect on a more personal level and create meaningful relationships."

To use the new feature, click the mic icon that now appears inside a conversation chain. Hold the button down while recording and release it to finish. When it's complete, you can either send the message or cancel it. On the receiving end, a user simply needs to click on a recording to listen to it. The feature has already rolled out to all iOS and Android users.

Rappaport told Business Insider last November that a number of new features are planned for Happn in hopes of catching up with rival Tinder. "For us, the evolution of our product is really important," he said. "We want to make a service that is more and more rich for our users and one that allows them to express themselves much more."

"The voice is something that is very emotional," he continued. "Just listening to the voice of someone else can give you a lot of impression."

As for what else the future holds for Happn, we'll have to wait and see.

Valentine's Day brings a mix of emotions. For loved up couples, it's a time of warm feelings and sappy Facebook posts. For some singles, it's a time of proud independence. For others, it's a season of heartbreak. And for some, Valentine's Day brings a heartbreak of a different kind.

Online dating websites typically see a surge around Cupid's big day – one that isn't just about finding a mate. The love-centric holiday is the perfect time for scammers to tug on the heartstrings (and purse strings) of naïve victims.

"Especially right before Valentine's Day people start to get a little more antsy trying to find a date,” Emily Bartz told Fox59. “There's kind of a rush and that makes it really easy for scammers to get a hold on victims and try to get money or their information.”

With Valentine's Day 2016 in the recent past, the subject of online dating scams has been big in the news. Bartz published an article on NextAdvisor that details three kinds of online dating scammers and the red flags you should watch for.

Up first are the survey scammers, who typically match with as many people as possible and begin coversations by inquiring about their match's experience using that particular dating service. “Once they’ve convinced their match that they are simply a fellow dater who is curious about other’s experiences with the service or are an employee of that service,” writes Bartz, “they are able to establish a level of trust that leads to victims unknowing giving out personal information, like their phone number, home address or payment information.”

Bartz cautions daters to be wary of anyone who asks them to participate in some type of survey. The word “survey” itself may appear, or the scammer may ask questions more subtly. Ignore queries about your opinion of the dating service and other users, as well as requests for account or personal info.

Up next are identity thieves. This type of scam is often discussed, particularly by critics of online dating, and is one of the most difficult to recognize. An identity thief can invest months in a victim before completing their scam.

An honest dater and an identity thief can sound confusingly alike. To tell them apart, Bartz recommends watching out for affection that comes on too strong, too early – especially if it's followed by personal questions. The scammer is trying to build a false sense of romance and rapport as quickly as possible. “Identity thieves residing on online dating sites are often very charming and know just what to say to their matches to get them to hand over everything they need to steal their identity,” Bartz warns.

Your best bet to unmask an identity thief is to suggest meeting offline (if, assuming it isn't a scammer, you're ready to take your relationship to that level). A scammer will usually refuse or avoid an in-person meeting, while a real suitor will be thrilled at the prospect.

Just when you thought the good old days of OkTrends were gone, and you'd resigned yourself to a life without the pithy, humorous, occasionally scandalous insights of the blog, OkCupid has launched something new: The Deep End.

Yes, that long awaited moment has finally come. OkCupid is back to blogging and anyone with a love of dating and data is squirming with joy. To kick things off, The Deep End released The Hangover, a look back on the trends and lessons that 2015 left behind. Here are some of its most interesting insights:

The Fifty Shades Effect

In typical boundary-pushing OkCupid fashion, the report starts with Americans' sex lives. Oregon took the crown for most users looking for casual flings, followed by Washington. At the opposite end of the sexual spectrum, users in Utah, South Dakota, and Idaho were the most likely to be virgins. Across the board, OkCupid users are looking to explore their kinky sides. Fifty-eight percent indicated an interest in bondage in 2015, up 5% from the year before.

Emoji Extravaganza

Love them or hate them, emojis are here to stay. The two most popular emojis on OkCupid were simple smiley faces, with the top spot going to the little guy with eyebrows. Unsurprisingly on a dating site, the winky face also scored highly. It came in third, followed by the heart eyes emoji. Beyond the classic faces, users loved the cake, coffee and pizza emojis, as well as the see-no-evil monkey.

Read Between The Lines

When not expressing themselves in modern hieroglyphs, OkCupid users ventured into verbal territory (with varying degrees of success). The Deep End found that a message simply saying “hey” had an 84% chance of being ignored in 2015. Other words from the millennial lexicon exploded last year. Use of “bae” doubled in frequency from 2014 to 2015, while “fleek,” “dad bod,” and “ghosting” made their first appearances in 2015.

Top Of The Pops

Dating and pop culture collided in 2015 with one ubiquitous phrase: Netflix and chill. The once harmless combination of words took on a new meaning last year, and use of the phrase in OkCupid messages rose 5,357% as a result. In other pop culture news, Taylor Swift replaced Miley Cyrus as the most mentioned pop star, while Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part II and Avengers: Age of Ultron dominated the movie mentions.

Where will we be at the end of 2016? The Deep End predicts a world that is increasingly progressive, in which racial bias is a serious dealbreaker for daters and, if OkCupid users have their way, a Democrat is elected to the White House.

“What we don’t yet know,” the https://www.okcupid.com/deep-end/the-hangover concludes, “are all of the sexy and bizarre ways we’ll connect in the new year.”

Recipient of Gold
Match.com

Recipient of Silver
eHarmony

Recipient of Bronze
Christian Mingle

The 2015 Dating Sites Reviews Single's Choice Award poll was launched on October 1st, 2015. By the beginning of January, 2016 when we closed the poll it had 459 people cast their votes. For the first question of the poll, it asked our visitors what paid dating site or app would you recommend for the Single's Choice Award. This question had 8 possible answers and included the top dating services of 2015. For this award the top voted service receives Gold, followed by Silver, and for third most voted site, Bronze.

The recipient of the Gold 2015 Single's Choice Award is Match.com. Match.com grew in popularity again this year and received 8% more votes than last year. For 2015 Match received 148 votes which is 32.24% of all votes cast.

The recipient of the Silver 2015 Single's Choice Award is eHarmony. eHarmony received 85 votes which is 18.52% of the total votes cast. This is roughly the same percentage of votes they had last year. This dating service continues to grow and launched several localized versions of their dating service in the past year.

The recipient of the Bronze 2015 Single's Choice Award is Christian Mingle. Christian Mingle received 60 votes which works out to 13.07% of all votes cast and 3% more votes than last year. This dating service continues to attract members thanks in part to a new and approved dating app which launched last year combined with a revamped web site.

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. Christian Mingle
4. Fitness Singles
5. OurTime.com
6. Are You Interested
7. Zoosk
8. Badoo

We would like to thank all our visitors who cast a vote this year for our Single’s Choice Award. The results of this award help guide our users to choose the best dating site or dating app for them. Each of the winning services receives a award badge on their review showcasing their accomplishments. All award winners are also added to the 2015 Award category.

Dating is a peculiar thing. Most of us hate doing it, because it feels like a waste of time when you go through the motions and still don’t meet anyone worth pursuing. It might feel pointless to join online dating sites or download apps, spend time messaging, and then when you meet potential dates, realize the match isn’t right less than ten minutes into your drinks.

But here’s the thing: dating is the process by which you get to the actual relationship. There’s just no other way.

Of course not everyone is going to be a good match, compatible, or even someone you find attractive. But this doesn’t mean you quit the process and then hope love stumbles on to your doorstep.

In fact, the opposite is true. The more time you put into dating, the more likely you are to develop a relationship. And I don’t just mean because you will be meeting a lot of people, but because you will be taking time out of your schedule to make finding a relationship a priority.

When you invest your time and effort into something, it might not yield results right away, but it creates an environment for success to happen. Take for instance, another type of life goal you have. Say you want to lose twenty pounds. Do you wait around, thinking that eventually you will lose this twenty pounds because fate will step in and help? Or do you join a gym, or a running group, or start an exercise regime?

You won’t yield results right away. As with any goal worth achieving, it will take time, effort, and some determination on your part. It won’t be easy.

It’s the same thing with work – you can’t expect a promotion without putting the time and effort into your job. When you focus your intentions on what you want, and you make time for it in your life, then you see real progress. Even if you don’t get that coveted promotion, you’ve gained skills that you can take to another, higher-paying or more prestigious job – because you have put in the time and effort. It’s never wasted.

Dating is the same. If you put in the time and effort, you will start to see results. But this means challenging yourself – going on more dates, giving more people a chance who you wouldn’t normally consider, thinking outside of your comfort zone. You have to stretch yourself to see what you are capable of.

As I say in my book Date Expectations, dating is a process to get to really know yourself and what you want. But you have to make the time for it.