General News

Three of the major dating sites offer a guarantee. Here is a comparison of them in alphabetical order.

Match.com

The first one to offer any type of guarantee was Match.com way back in the summer of 2006. It was initially called the "Make Love Happen Guarantee" but has been shorten to "Match.com Guarantee". The way it works is, when you purchase a 6 month membership and if you don't find someone special in that time period, Match.com will give you an additional 6 months for free. To be eligible for the guarantee, during your subscription you must create a truthful profile with a primary photo that is visible at all times. You must also respond to or initiate email communication with at least 5 unique Match.com members for each month of your membership. This email must be sent through the Match.com service and does not include winks or instant messaging.

To find out if you are eligible for the guarantee extension you can check it out anytime on the Guarantee Program Progress Page located in your Account Settings on Match.com. To receive your guarantee you must visit the progress page during the last 7 days of your 6 month subscription. You would then answer the questions related to your eligibility status. If you qualify you can then accept your additional 6 months for free. If you did not qualify, a message will be displayed telling you why.

To find out more on this dating site and their guarantee, read our Match.com review.

Wow,

It just hit me that this post is number 500 for our General News topic! In all, we have over 600 posts in all topics with about 65 of them being written and submitted by some of our readers.

I also just realized that DatingSitesReviews.com in its current form turned 5, a few months ago (Opps, I missed reporting our anniversary). Our first story was written way back in December of 2003. The website actually first started in September of 2003 as a static website (with all html written in Notepad) but I soon realized I needed a dynamic content management system to make things easier to update. By December, I had found what I was looking for and had done the initial setup. Originally our website was mainly a destination for reviews and tips for dating sites and online dating in general, but by late 2005 we had stepped up or news coverage and commentary of the dating industry as a whole. There have been a lot of changes along the way for DatingSitesReviews.com with some of them being more in-depth reviews, the addition of our forums and allowing user submitted reviews and ratings.

I would like to thank all of our users and readers of this site. You make this website a success, without you DatingSitesReviews.com wouldn't have become one of the top destinations on the internet for information relating to online dating.

Many Thanks,

Tom

I am surprised at the Economist. They posted this article on Thursday about how Online-dating websites prosper in the recession. While this may have been true 5 months ago, it is not the case anymore. They should of really done more fact checking. Take a look at a few traffic monitoring sites like Compete.com and they show most dating sites in February actually stayed flat or lost 5 percent or more of their visitors, when compared to January. February is suppose to be a dating sites most busy month. Granted traffic monitoring sites are not 100 percent accurate but they do give you a rough idea when you take several of them in consideration.

The Economist should also realize that traffic alone does not determine a website success. Revenue and Net Income ultimately determines if any business will survive. Not once is this information mentioned. They talk about OkCupid and how their registered active users is up but no where do they mention how online advertising has dried up in the last few months, OkCupid's primary source of revenue. eHarmony is also mentioned but, traffic patterns do not support this. Plus, there is a huge goof in the article:

eHarmony, a wholesome marriage-oriented site with more than 20m paying subscribers.

eHarmony has had 20 million people register on the site since they launched in 2000, this is both free and paid members. In 2008 we had estimated eHarmony only has about 90,000 paid members at anyone time (see this page for more details).

Another thing the Economist should of considered is, none of the major dating sites have had a press release lately touting the continued growth during the recession. This is another sign things may not be as good as back in November-December 2008, when we saw press releases from dating sites like Match.com, eHarmony and Perfectmatch. This was when they talked about the recession and the increased growth they received.

For more information on the dating sites mentioned in this post, read our eHarmony review and our OkCupid review.

I just received an email from eHarmony's new Compatible Partners gay dating site which is due to launch any day now. They wanting me to reconfirm my initial email registration. While I don't fall in the category of someone looking for a long-term committed same sex relationship, we do plan on creating a review for the service. It will be interesting to see what changes (if any) eHarmony will do to their existing profile, communication process and matching formula to fit it more in line with a gay relationship. It has been reported that eHarmony will not be changing how the matching system works, at least initially.

Remember for the first 10,000 singles who signup to Compatible Partners, they will receive a free membership. Visit Compatiible Partners.

The unofficial eHarmony Blog noticed that eHarmony just launched The Divorced Mom's Guide to Dating. It expands on the popular free eHarmony Advice website to include topics and articles related to experiences and issues divorced Mom's may face when trying to date again. Currently on the site, popular articles include, How to Never Date Another Version of Your Ex and What to Tell Your Kids About Your Dating Life.

I just have one question, what are divorced Dad's suppose to do? Maybe eHarmony should of called the new resource site The Divorced Parent's Guide to Dating. Since, for the most part, the advice on the site is just as applicable if you are a Mom or a Dad.

if you are a single or divorced Mom or Dad visit a Divorced Mom's Guide to Dating (divorcedmoms.eharmony.com). If you are interested in finding out more about the eHarmony dating site, read our eHarmony review.

According to Steve Penner, if you are a man in your 40's it is fairly easy to increase the number of single woman you can meet online through dating sites. He said not only should you just be yourself, but you should open yourself up to meeting woman close to your own age. A lot of men over the age of 45 want to meet a single woman who is 10 or even 20 years younger than them. If this is a strong preference for them it can greatly reduce your chances of meeting any woman, plus it places you in direct competition with much younger men. Steve goes on and stresses:

The fact is that today's 50-year-old single woman is not "your father's 50-year-old woman." To use another worn out expression "50 is the new 35." Have you guys noticed what many 50-year-old women look like these days?

Improved diet and fitness workouts have kept them in much better shape than women of a similar age from previous generations. Many if not most of these women also have careers, which further motivate them to lead a healthy lifestyle and to look good in the work place.

If you think keeping your ideal matches age range near your age, imagine setting your age range to 5 years above your age. Doing this will give you a large number of quality woman to choose from and increase your chances exponentially of meeting the right woman for you.

Visit Seacoast Online for the full article.