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Okay here is the skinny...
We are going to give you brutally honest reviews of the major dating sites. We are not going to say we are totally unbiased. We have used all of the sites we review and are not like the other so called dating site reviews where they are nothing more than affiliates trying to get you to join the sites so they make money off you. We are NOT affiliates of any of the sites we review! We will not make money if you join any of the major sites we review. If you disagree or have new information we should know about, please let us know by email. -Kirk Rhode, Reviewer*
We wish you luck and happiness in your search!
EHarmony.com is intended for people looking for a long-term, serious relationship, meaning: "looking for marriage". You have to take their personality profile and then if accepted, you would be allowed to join. EHarmony is designed for a certain type of person and if you answer the questions in the personality profile in a way that indicate you are more a follower than a leader, you will be accepted. This accomplishes two goals of the site. One is to control the type of person joining and two is to increase the success rate of matches. There is an underlying spiritual theme going throughout the site so if vague references to Christian values bothers you-avoid it. This site is best for people who would rather have someone else make the decisions on which you have to choose from because they do the matching for you. This site is best for a type C personality or a borderline type B. $20.95-59.95/month
AdultFriendFinder.com is intended for people looking for a casual, and in most cases, a sexual relationship, meaning: "not looking for marriage". AFF (Adult Friend Finder) along with it’s related sites (15 sites including ALT.com, Christian, regional sites and gay sites) claim to have the most members of any online service. Years ago it was a good value and useful. It has evolved into a money machine that restricts member’s access to the extreme, adds fees for just about every option and is filled with fake ads. If you are seriously seeking a partner on any level then avoid these sites! Free members cannot really see profiles and there are ridiculous obstacles to contact anyone as a free member or have free members respond back to you even if you have a premium membership! Even if you pay for one of the premium memberships, you will be suspended and your profile removed if you include email or other offsite contact information in your emails to others. They claim to do this in the name of “safety” (which is total BULL) and it makes the sites useless to anyone seriously seeking a connection. A lot of pictures and provocative profiles but if you are serious about finding anyone to meet offline-forget it! $17.95 to 59.95+/month
Match.com falls somewhere in between serious relationships and sexual encounters. Match is focusing on casual dating that may potentially turn into a long-term relationship. They have millions of members and you can localize your searches to your area. They have all kinds of features including Dr.Phil’s advice columns, his daily message by voice and their new Chemistry personality matching service. Their prices are reasonable without too many add-ons. The site is cluttered but still navigation able. It is difficult to wade your way through all the member profiles unless you have a lot of time. You do need to sign up to really view profiles and send emails. Match and AOL have a partnership program which is not necessarily an advantage-because you get a lot of AOL members joining (sorry but AOL members are not a high quality group no matter now you look at it!). Overall it is a pretty good service if you have the time and patience to work with it. $29.99/month
TravelingPersonals.com is a site that has been around since 1999 but has recently gone through an overhaul. There are NO extra or premium charges! The site simple and straight forward to use. There are no long questionnaires, cute matchmaking advice columns from over paid celebrities, or fancy video links. While the site is smaller in membership than many, the quality is much higher due to their screening process for both men and women. They do simple background checks for member safety! They do not tolerate (or encourage as some site seem to) fake ads or porn site teaser ads. They also make sure men and women give valid information when they sign up to help minimize the fakes and flakes. This site with it's partner sites offer the best value for the money! $2.88/month
True.com claim to be the safest online service because they do superficial background checks on full paying members. They also warn anyone who is married or has a criminal record that they will prosecute them for joining-what a crock! The company itself is regarded as a bully in the online dating industry for their self-serving sponsorship of useless state legislation requiring background checks (based on their business model) for all online dating site members. Again they claim millions of members, most of which are free members who do not come back. In fact their lastest ads say "1000 New Singles an Hour". What good does it do if 950 never come back and then again...who is going to notice your ad in all that clutter?The site does do a good job of weeding out fake and porn ads. They have the usual features of matchmaking and advice areas. Overall they promote a usable service as long as you understand that regardless of their “concern for safety”, you have to be careful when meeting anyone on or off line. $21.67-49.99/month
PlentyofFish.com is a Canadian company who designed a free service that is primarily an advertising outlet rather than a service expressly designed for online dating. They have grown by leaps and bounds in the past year with their emphasis on being totally free. They now boast millions of members and are certainly in the top five in online dating sites in size. Service is relatively easy to use and there are ads everywhere but not too intrusive. When you are doing searches for a partner online it is difficult enough to have to wade through millions of profiles but to have to determine if the profile is real or the person behind it is serious is an added burden. Totally free sites encourage masses of membership with little commitment on the part of members to use the service honestly. Again, if you have the time and patience to wander through a lot of ads, some fake, some real, some who never come back, then for the price this is a good value. $Free
YahooPersonals.com is a natural extension of the social networking services Yahoo offers in with their messenger. Yahoo has a good format and a lot of members. While they have the same issues of millions of members as the other big sites, they have a good format to localize searches. Yes you can sign up for free and then pay for sending emails and seeing full profiles, but they do not clutter things up with premium services and add-on charges. Yahoo also encourages you to do searches until you are ready to pay rather than hit you with a sales pitch at every turn. They also emphasize photos a lot. $12.49-24.95/month
Cupid.com is very similar to Match.com in features and structure. They do allow free members to send “Eye contacts” to generate interest of other members. They have their own so called experts for dating advice and all kinds of bells and whistles that can distract from the mission of finding someone to hook up with. Cupid does a good job of localizing results and even advertises local specific domain addresses. They also get offline with speed dating events in a variety of major cites. They have a well-designed site but as cluttered as many others yet you can navigate it well. They do allow free members to contact paying members so they are not as money hungry as most of the other major pay sites. $8.32-29.95/month
Click here for some Dating/Personals sites that have a
2 to1 woman to man ratio!
*These are the opinions of the reviewer and do not represent the opinions or views of Go Daddy.com or any other entities involved in hosting this website. If you are a representative of any of the sites reviewed you can save yourself a lot of legal fees by just sending an email if you disagree. If we hear from your attorneys first we will release the dogs of war (our attorneys) and make it very expensive for you in the long run. We believe in free speech and to the best of our knowledge, what we represent here is an honest opinion and description of the dating sites reviewed. |
