The genteel "singles introduction service" of yesterday has become the Internet "dating agency" of today. It is one of the great success stories of the Internet. This is hardly surprising when you consider that the old style agency might have cost you as much as your summer holiday, whereas the Internet version costs less that a round of drinks - and probably gives you access to ten times as many people.
So where should you start? I must say that I do not intend this page to be a comparison of sites. For a start, there are hundreds of them. If you want to see the wildlife in this jungle, I do not pick the watering holes you should visit; but rather, I give you some basic training in jungle living - including a few hints on how to live with the crocodiles.
Why not just join the first you see?
One reason why we use an Internet dating service is to save time. We can choose from hundreds and contact many people. So why can we not sign up to the first service that appears on our screen and see who we find there?
You can, of course. If you really want a date tomorrow night, get stuck in and good luck to you. But if you feel that choosing a special person with whom you hope to share a large chunk of your life is worth more than the time you spend to make a cup of coffee, then the more effort you put into the operation, the higher your chance of finding your perfect partner - whether it is for a week or a life time.
Yes, Internet dating is fast and efficient; but it would be a mistake to assume that you will fall in love with the first person you meet or that the availability of 10,000 people makes your choice easier. I must emphasise this: Internet dating is not a cattle market. We do not join in order to be "chosen". We join for an opportunity to communicate with people who might just be right for us. So a wide choice is good, but it is only the start.
Where to start
If you search on "dating", you will be disappointed. The first few pages of names are not dating sites at all, but so called directory sites whose owners make a living from re-directing you to "real" dating sites.
This is how it happens: search engines rank a web page in accordance with a list of criteria which can be automativally applied by their clever software. The mathematicians may call it an algorithm, but it is
actually a pretty common sense list that you or I could as easily scribble on the back of an envelope.
The aim of the search engine algorithm is to identify the most important websites to return
to you and me when we search with a particular search word, like "dating".
So these directory sites discovered that they can get a higher ranking than the real dating
sites by filling their home page with exactly the "food" the search engine spiders pick up.
For example, if you operate a real dating site, how many times would you want to use the
keyword "dating" on your home page? Two or three times? But a directory can show a home
page list of "dating" associated with every country or religion in the world. The dumb
spidrs then assume that such sites are more relevant to what you really want than the "real"
dating sites.
The affiliate trap
Next point to watch is the affiliate trap. An affiliate site may have no connection with the
service it advertises, but instead of the advertiser paying for space on the affiliate site, he
pays a proportion of his sales to people who first came to buy his (dating) service from that
other site. Because dating services are profitable, they can afford to pay comparatively high
affiliate commissions, so they naturally attract a large number of determined affiliates. In fact
more money is made from dating by powerful affiliates than by the companies who actually provide
the service.
Some affiliates simply provide recommendations and adverts; others dress the product in their own
livery. Yahoo became a major affiliate of one service, but found it so profitable that it now runs
its own dating service (though this may still be operated on an affiliate basis by a specialist).
The point I make about all this is that affiliate sites and directory sites are very
biased - the strongest recommendations go to the most expensive sites, because that
is where the affiliate earns most cash.
The quick seduction
No, don't get too excited. I am talking about your being seduced onto a website! By far the most common way
to engage your interest is to invite you to confirm your gender, then enter your country in a box and click.
You may be told there are 54,000,239 people who match your requirement. Since you have some difficulty in
identifying even one, down at your pub, that may be enticing. Forget it. Read on and you will see that the
number of people is only the very start. Even the most promiscuous of us could not deal with more than a few
at once, and most of us are really looking for just one partner for life. What we want is a website that helps
find that person.
So how do you find the perfect website?
I was afraid you might ask that! What I have given you so far is inside info rather than positive help.
I hope you will be better equipped to find the website that suits you. But there is more . . . . .
This site is written on behalf of www.WhereSinglesMeet.com , a World wide dating service based in the UK
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