Statistics

The Times Online (UK version) published an article called 10 things to know about internet dating. It is like most other dating safety lists with tips about talking on the phone first before meeting in person and, as point 7 suggests, your first date should always be in daylight and take place around other people. The Times first point is about reading between the lines to see if your potential match is married or even separated. They cite a statistic from MSNBC which says:

one third of people using online dating services are married

While I have no doubts that married people use dating sites, I don't believe a third of all online daters are married. Free dating sites do tend to have more married people and scammers on them since there is no cost to entry. Plus a married man or woman is much less likely to use a paid dating site since they don't want to have to explain to their partner about the dating site charge on their credit card.

David Evans of the Online Dating Insider, had an interview with Mandy Ginsberg who is the Match.com GM for North America. She let David know about a few things that will be coming to Match.com in 2009. The main thing we have to look forward too is the new Platinum membership package. Not much is know yet, but apparently Platinum members will be able to contact all member types, including free users. This means members now have the ability to communicate with anyone on Match.com and they will not have to worry if the user can reply back or not without paying first. Other dating sites have started to allow this and I am glad to see Match.com following suit.

I could of sworn I wrote about Match.com's Platinum package before but I couldn't find anything mentioned on my site. Through a Google search I did find what I was looking for. Match.com currently does have a Platinum package. You can find it here and I believe it was started a couple years ago. It currently is a premium matchmaking service offered by Match.com but is not directly tied to the dating site. The service is only available in Dallas, Texas where the Match.com head office is located. This is a personalized service where you and a matchmaker work one on one to find your ideal match. I wonder if Match.com will be either dropping this service or renaming it to avoid confusion?

As with North American dating sites (see Story), the European online dating sites have seen a boost in memberships during the downturn in the economy. Match.com International UK and European dating sites saw a pre-tax profit of £3.67m ($5.6 million US) in the year to December 31 2007. The year before they saw a loss of £2.19m ($3.4 million US). In the third quarter this year Match International saw a 6 percent increase in paying members. For the next few years Match foresees Europe driving it's growth as the North American online dating market slows. Last year the UK and Scandinavia was where Match.com International saw its best growth.

Other dating services like those run by WhiteLabelDating.com saw members grow over the last year in the United Kingdom by 250 percent to over 1 million members. Nielsen Online is also reporting a 15 percent increase in unique visitors to online dating site November 2008, when compared to 2007. For European dating sites in the last year the total number of visitors have increased by 20 percent. The year before it was 9 percent.

For the full story visit The Telegraph. Read our Match.com UK review for more information on this popular dating service.

MillionaireMatch.com now displays a member count on their homepage. As of writing, there are 1,071,634 member profiles available on this dating service. Since it is free to place a lifetime ad at MillionaireMatch.com, this number shouldn't be confused with the number of active members. The number being displayed is the number of members who have joined MillionaireMatch.com since it started, which was around 2001. Active members refers to members who routinely log in and use the site. Unfortunately there is no standard measurement for this so some dating sites count an active member as someone who has logged in within 2 years while others count a member as active when someone logs in at least once a month.

While this number is not the number of active members it still represents a large number of profiles. This probably means that Millionaire Match has tens of thousands active members. You should also remember that all free members can reply to a paid members email so this can greatly increase your chances of finding a match when you compare Millionaire Match to other Sugar Daddy dating sites.

Read our full Millionaire Match review for more information on this popular and award winning dating service.

As the economy continues its downward trend in December, singles continue to use online dating sites in increasing numbers. Are people trying to save money on dates by finding a better match first through a dating service rather than trolling bars? A night out on the town with your single friends is expensive when you add up all the costs, cab fare, drinks and cover charge. For probably much less than a night out with friends, you can join a dating site for a month. Some statistics from an article by the Los Angeles Times seem to back up this thinking:

Craigslist personals postings and eHarmony.com registrations have each seen 20% increases in 2008. Match.com has seen an even larger spike; its memberships were 22% higher in December than they were in the same period last year. Even more interesting, both eHarmony and Match.com reported especially high traffic on days when the Dow Jones Industrial Average plummeted.

Match.com also reported a 50% increase in profile views for the month of December when compared to November. Remember, November also saw its share of increases as well, where dating sites like Match.com, Perfectmatch.com and Date.com all saw more members joining and/or participating in the month of November, when compared to the same month from previous years. Match.com also performed a survey of 1,500 members and found 84 percent of them were "being more selective about first dates in today's economy."

For more information about the online dating sites and how they are performing in the recession, read this article from the Los Angeles Times. Check out our reviews of Match.com, PerfectMatch.com and Date.com for more information on these successful dating services.

On December 3rd in a story called New Features & Design at Match.com we reported that on Match.com's fact sheet at their parent company website, IAC reported that Match.com receive 60,000 new registered members every day. Well, it appears they have updated this information. IAC now reports "more than 71,000 new people register on Match.com every day". That is roughly a 18 percent increase in new registered members. Recently Match.com also reported that they had their best November in 7 years. Things seem to be on the upswing for Match.com who's membership levels have remained stagnate in recent years.

For more information on this popular dating site, read our Match.com review.