Making the Match: Trends in Online Dating Sites

The holiday season is supposed to be a time when people come together. But for lonely singles, it can also highlight the fact that they are, well, lonely and single. Whether it’s for a New Years date, a resolution to finally find a soul mate, or even pressure from family to settle down, online dating services see a ramping up of activity, starting around Christmas. How does this trend look, and what does it mean for the big players in the industry?

The chart below ranks online dating services by member activity, which was described in more detail last month. The site rankings are relatively unchanged from last month. However, in general Member activity increased.

IAC/InterActiveCorp (IACI) owned Match.com moved up one spot in rank. While it’s not shown in this chart, total traffic to the site grew more than 50% from November to December, which could have resulted in new membership.

Yahoo Personals (YHOO) member visits increased by 13% from November to December, capturing the top spot, and the biggest change from the previous month.

eHarmony member activity actually declined from November. Perhaps their compatibility service is too good at finding matches?

Sticking with it’s provocative ad campaign on social networking sites, True still hasn’t been able to convert its heavy traffic (nearly no change from the previous month) into member activity.

How big was the holiday ramp up this year? Looking at total weekly traffic to mainstream dating sites, it’s apparent that interest in online dating services starts to grow right around Christmas. These sites saw about a 13% change in visitors and visits (a proxy for activity) since the week of the December 10th.

‘Tis the season to be in a relationship I guess.

Comments

[bobbyd:]

Speaking of dating, check out the future of online dating sites at verbdate.com. Its dating 2.0 with voice over ip, video, tags, presence and location as well as all traditional online personals features. The big take away? Its 100% free and trending around the globe!

The future of online dating is free, with video and voice services and with the integration of Youtube video greetings verbdate.com is leading the way in free user generated content on a dating site!

"The future is not so much in content, but rather the conversations and communities formed around it! "bobbyd
Talk on all - talk on :)

2007 Feb 04 12:51 PM

[serenalucy19:]

Dating is any social ativity performed as a pair or even a group with the aim of each assessing the other's suitability as their partner in an intimate relationship or as a spouse,i can say that meet2go.com this is an excellent dating site, here u can find live chats,straight and marvelous forum discussions,fun, and if u try there will a person already been waiting for you., here u will get superb dating tips,really fascinating.....iam sure about that

2008 Jun 09 01:51 AM

[Online Dating:]

One of the issues with the sites mentioned by the previous commentors is that a lot of these smaller sites are just sharing their database of users. By joining sites like Match, Yahoo and maybe Singlesnet you have pretty much access to 99% of all online daters. It's going to be difficult for sites like verbdate and meet2go to compete.

Jan 06 09:12 PM

[sumie:]

There is a special offer for all lovers. Now you can fixed a dating in Brisbane,Australia.Dat... is a romantic event for every couple in whole world.So,please choose a right place for your dating. It is not too late to entertain your loved ones.
______________________...
sumie
Brisbane Dating

Feb 19 04:38 AM

[Free Online...:]

actually i have found the best newest free online dating site to be confonder.com

Mar 30 06:08 PM

[free intern...:]

I should say I’m a bit tired of free dating agencies with many pretty smiling faces of young European girls whom you can never reach. Yes, you can send a million of letters but you’ll never know a person in that way. To my mind that’s much better to chat online. A friend of mine has given me a link to meeting42.com. That’s also an online dating service but for a nominal charge members get a possibility to chat online, receive notices when new letters come or new members are registered and it’s possible to keep a diary or a blog there. On the site they also have a lot of interesting articles about psychology of love and marriage which can be very helpful for those who are eager to find a life partner and to get married. I really like it!

Apr 02 07:47 AM

[free intern...:]

Hi! I’ve seen a great affiliate partner program at meeting42.com. They pay 10% of the registration fee for each member brought to their site. You need invite only one person and still earn good money as your friend can invite all his/her friends and you’ll get 15% for everyone and your friend will get his 10% for each one and the next link in the chain will bring you 20%! So, there’s no competition. So, you can earn money due to your friend knowing a lot of people who are willing to register. And that’s possible to check all your subscribers at a special page so you can always see how many people are in your chain. That’s very fair, don’t you think?

Apr 24 03:58 AM

[Debbie.spru...:]

Interesting results!!

May 08 11:50 AM