As online dating has become more popular, an abundance of matching and social networking sites have popped up to vie for visitor traffic, advertising sponsors, and subscription dollars. Understanding the types of dating sites that are available, their benefits and limitations, and how their features and functionality best serve your Internet usage and dating preferences is a fundamental step to success in online romance. As you are making at the very least an investment of your time, if not money, taking an hour to review all the sites that are out there is worth taking to ensure you’re not throwing away your time and money on a community with little to offer you in terms of a potential match.
Let’s first divide dating sites into two basic categories: Free and Subscription-based. Most ‘free’ sites are advertising driven, as their operational costs are generally off-set with banner sales on their site, and potentially selling your personal information to third-party affiliates (usually marketing groups). Subscription-based sites make their primary revenue by offering their services at a monthly, semi-annual, or annual subscription bases, usually charged to a customer’s credit card.
Joining a free site may be better suited for people new to online dating and just want feel it out without a financial commitment that will have you feeling obligated fully participate to justify the monthly subscription costs.
Paid sites are ideal for those of you who are earnestly dedicated to finding a mate and feel that the Internet is your salvation, as the requirement of a financial investment is reflected in a higher quality of candidates, though it may also limit the number of candidates in your dating pool.
Take some time in analyzing each of the above mentioned sites to determine which feels like a place you can find an ideal match. Be sure to spend some time scrolling through members in your local area to see if there are a handful of attractive candidates, and make sure their most recent login information is current- this is usually displayed on their profile, and while most services aim to remove inactive members, there are plenty of profiles floating around from years ago that no longer connect to their owners. Once you have decided on which site or sites you will join, go ahead and create your profile and let’s start lining up some dates!
Also, don’t get hooked into a site because you see one ‘perfect’ mate listed: many sites plant purposefully attractive profiles to lure in members, and in the case that this perfect profile is real, rest assured that unless they have just recently signed up, they are already buried in emails (especially true for girls with hot photos in their profiles).