Online Dating Blog

Nielsen released numbers in June of this year showing which online dating sites were receiving the most traffic. During that month, there were close to 30 million unique visitors across the sites they were tracking…obviously online dating is becoming more popular all the time. The following are a list of the top ten sites based on the data they collected.

10. AOL Personals (Unique visitors in June 2009: 957,000)
Personally, I don’t think this one should count as a dating site at all. All the site does is show sign-up forms for other dating services (Match.com and eHarmony every time I’ve checked). If linking to online dating services counts as being a dating service then Google should be on the list at number 1 (it’s not). I’d love to know what the eleventh site was because they’re getting a bad deal getting left everyone’s list just because AOL is linking to other services!

9. Mate1 (Unique visitors in June 2009: 1,173,000)
On to the first “real” online dating service on our list, Mate1. I’ve never used Mate1 but I do see their advertisements a lot (they seem to like to go for the more provocative ads).

8. Spark Networks (Unique visitors in June 2009: 1,223,000)
Spark Networks isn’t actually a single dating service but rather a network of many different dating services. All of these dating services are niche sites catering to specific types of daters. This network actually has several dozen niche sites across many different areas. Some of the more popular sites in this network include:

• AmericanSingles.com – Online dating for those in the United (one of the less specialized services they offer)
• Date.ca – Date.ca is one of Canada’s premier online dating services
• BlackSingles.com – As the name implies, this dating service is geared towards Black singles.
• ChristianMingle.com – This services is an ideal destination for Christian men and women looking to find friends, dates, and even soul mates.
• JDate.com – A Jewish community online dating service that has been growing for more than a decade
• PrimeSingles.net – This dating service is specifically for singles over 40 ready for friendship, dating, and marriage.
• InterracialSingles.net – Was started in 2004 in an effort to help interracial couples find singles wanting to date outside of their race.
• CatholicMingle.com – This is community of Catholic singles looking for friendship, marriage and also religious discussion.
• SingleParentsMingle.com – This service is a leading site for single moms and dads to come together for online dating.

7. DO U LIKE (Unique visitors in June 2009: 1,992,000)
I’d never heard of this site but looking at it, it appears very much like HotOrNot.com. You vote on pictures (either yes you like them or no you don’t). When someone likes you, you’re alerted to of this and you can then “like” them in return, at which point I imagine the communication begins. There is a fee for the service if you want to communicate with people but you can rate people for free. View Do U Like.

6. Plenty of Fish (Unique visitors in June 2009: 2,198,000)
Plenty of Fish is the largest free dating site and it continues to grow. From the people I talk to, there’s a much higher degree of “weirdness” happening on this site and lots of men “fishing” for sex (and not afraid to say so). Still, it’s free. Try Plenty of Fish here.

5. Singlesnet.com (Unique visitors in June 2009: 2,615,000)
Singlesnet.com claims to be the #1 most visited sites in the U.S. (likely because much of the other big sites concentrate on international audiences). This service offers all the standards with a few unique features including regional chat rooms and a dating forum.

4. TRUE (Unique visitors in June 2009: 3,134,000)
TRUE is a feature-rich dating service with extensive concentration on video chat. While the features are excellent, this is one of the more costly of the services I’ve seen.

3. Match.com (Unique visitors in June 2009: 3,379,000)
I was surprised to see Match.com at third as I’d always assumed they were the top service. This is the service I used to meet my wife and I thought it was a good service, providing everything I needed. Sign-up to try Match.com free for 7 days.

2. Yahoo! Personals (Unique visitors in June: 4,130,000)
As the name suggests, this is the dating service provided by the search engine Yahoo! I always felt like this service had so many members because of all the people who already had a Yahoo! account which (in my opinion) sometimes means the people you are seeing may not be as committed to online dating as on other services.

1. eHarmony (Unique visitors in June: 4,252,000)
I knew eHarmony is the most popular “matching” dating service but I didn’t realize it was the most visited dating site across all dating sites. This was the first online dating service I used seriously and it was great as it walks you through the entire process with every match. As with TRUE, prices at this service run higher but again the quality of the site is excellent. eHarmony is based off of a personality test which you can take for free here.