Dating Services

This year the Editor's Top Pick - Match System Award once again goes to eHarmony. We have been handing out this award since 2008 and every year eHarmony has been the winner. The fact that eHarmony’s matching system delivers high quality matches to their members which are not just based on what a member wants, but also on what personality traits that scientific research suggests works best in a relationship, is the key to this dating site’s success.

With eHarmony being in business for more than 10 years they have had a chance to really refine their service. In 2011 they continued to do so by adding additional features and information to their existing website and improving on their mobile applications. 2011 was the year mobile dating in general really took off and eHarmony made sure to meet their members demands by releasing high quality and fully functional apps.

eHarmony is one of the most popular matchmaking sites online. If you are looking for a long-term relationship with a matching system backed by relationship studies and if you are more interested in being match on personality and not just someone’s interests then eHarmony is a dating service you should try.

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

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

The recipient of the Editor's Top Pick - Over All Award for 2011 is Match.com. This dating site year after year continues to be in our opinion one of the best choices for singles who wish to find a date through an online service.

What more could you ask for in a dating site? The service has lots of members, a 6 month guarantee, mobile apps for all types of phones, a robust and easy to use interface and, lots of dating tools to help you to find your match. Match.com is designed for all types of singles. Whether you’re a senior just getting back into dating and discovering you can now do it online, to a busy professional whose time is short and knows what they want in a relationship.

For over 10 years Match.com has been the leader in online dating and in 2011 it was no different. They continued to refine the online dating process by improving their matching algorithms and adding such features for communication as filtering your email by attributes of the senders profile, and VIP mail. We were also introduced to DateSpark which helps members interested in each other, to take that first step and meet in person. DateSpark allows members to suggest on their profile their ideal first date. If another member finds the date interesting they can comment on it which not only helps break the ice but has them already planning the first date.

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

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

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.

eHarmony is having a free communication event this weekend which starts Friday, December 30th and ends on Monday January 2nd at 11:59pm. It has been a while since their last event so those of you interested in giving eHarmony a try, now is the time to do so. With the recent holidays and the New Year being celebrated on Sunday you can expect dating services like eHarmony to be extra busy; which means more singles to meet online.

For those of you who have not heard of eHarmony's free communication weekends (FCW), they allow new and existing members to communicate for free. Remember it is also free to create a profile as well so there is no cost or credit card required to enjoy this event. The only features not included during this promotion are photos, Secure Call (a phone service) and skipping to email in the guided communication process.

The last FCW happened during Labour Day in September (see Story). From our count this will be eHarmony's 36th free communication event.

To find out more about this online dating site you can take a look at our eHarmony review.

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

With over 5 million registered members, Christian Mingle has become the largest and fastest-growing online community for love-seeking Christian singles.

"Gone are the days when online dating was considered taboo - even in the Christian community," says Ashley Reccord, Christian community manager for ChristianMingle's owner Spark Networks. "One of the amazing gifts of our age is that the internet can virtually erase many of the barriers to finding new relationships with people who share your interests and values."

ChristianMingle believes that one's faith is a deeply important part of who a person is, and that religious beliefs are a driving force behind what Christians look for in potential partners. The site is free to join, but don't let the low price tag fool you - it offers a fully featured dating service that is secure, private, and highly interactive. Members meet via email, chat rooms, message boards, and instant messenger which encourages a sense of community and creates an engaging social atmosphere.

Users can also connect and discuss their faith on Believe.com, ChristianMingle's faith-best content destination. Believe includes video and audio resources for the Christian community, as well as a "Verse of the Day" and a "Bible Study of the Day." Users can also browse a searchable Bible, prayer requests, and a church directory.

Nearly two million singles joined ChristianMingle in 2011, the site's most successful year yet. To celebrate their expansion, increase awareness of the site within the Christian community, and share members' success stories, ChristianMingle has launched the "Good News!" campaign, a series of online videos and television commercials that highlight the personal stories of couples who met on the site. "Every day, ChristianMingle members send over 100,000 messages," said Tre, one of the men featured in the advertisements. "I sent one of those messages and met my beautiful wife."

The "Good News!" campaign also reaches out to churches across the nation, to provide resources for group leaders and pastors. ChristianMingle hopes that their outreach efforts will do more than bring Christian singles together on the site - they hope to create a safe and active faith-based community for members with shared values that goes well beyond dating and marriage.

"ChristianMingle believes that marriage is important, but also that relationships and community are important," says Matthew Barnett, a pastor and ChristianMingle Advisory Board member. "ChristianMingle serves as a great resource for singles looking for companionship in like-minded Christians who share the same belief system and interests."

To find out about this dating site, please read our ChristianMingle.com review.