Guide to Personals
& Dating Sites
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Major Site Reviews

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+ premium services

Match.com focuses on romantic 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+ premium services

Single Affair.com is a site that has been around since 2003 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 its partner sites offers the best value for the money. No premium services or upgrades as you get all services with any membership.  $2.99/month-Upgrades not needed.

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 years 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. Up to 80% of the profiles are “abandoned”, meaning the member has not visited in over a year.  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

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+premium services

YoungerOlder.com Younger women seeking older men and younger men seeking older women.  This is the perfect site for those who are looking for the freshness of a wide range of age. Active since 2003 and featuring more women than men. Women are free to join and men are as little as $2.99 a month with a 3 day free trail. Chat rooms and hotlist features are all included and there are no up charges or premium services offered or needed.

FarmersOnly.com This site does a lot of advertising and is aimed at people seeking the "country" lifestyle.   The design is fine but the members are mostly window shopping and there a many more men then women.  However it is a good site for the country crowd and those seeking a rural lifestyle.

BlackPeopleMeet.com Aimed for the African American market or interracial lovers.  Not well designed and full of old or less than truthful profiles but no more than many others.  Still results depend on premium services and upgrades if you want to get anyone out of it. 

OurTime.com Targeted to the over 50 crowd but again, premium upgrades are the way to get noticed.  The ratio of women to men is not very good if you are a male.  Heavy competition for the few quality women available. Not a lot of resources for dating and there are questionable profiles scattered through out.