Our Review Criteria

When we review an online dating site, we carefully study all aspects of the service on offer. Before we even register with the service in question, we will be looking at how much the site has to offer for free, how quickly it loads, how surfer friendly it is and so on. Then we both register with the site and start to check through all of the features available. We remain members of all the dating sites we review and continually update our pages so that we can let you know about any new features, major changes in membership numbers, and of course, any deterioration in service.

Our no-nonsense and to-the-point reviews are written to give you the important facts with none of the marketing waffle. We're not trying to sell you anything here, so we'll tell it like it is!

Every review starts with "The Bottom Line" - at the top! This is a quick summary of the site in question.

Here are the areas we look at on every online dating site we review :

Membership
The more members a dating site has, the more chance you have of finding your perfect match. Of course, it's not just how many profiles a site has at any one time that is important, but also how many new profiles are being added.

Profile Detail
Generally speaking, the more detailed a profile can be, the better the chances of getting a good match are. But simple is good too - if you narrow your criteria too much you could miss out!

Searching
We look at how specific you can make your searches, whether you can save them, perhaps have results emailed to you periodically and so on.

Coverage
Many online dating sites have a large membership from the United States, but what about other countries? We check!

Safety
As long as you use common sense, online dating is at least as safe as any other way of meeting people, usually safer. But we like to make sure you can at least block communication from other members if you start to receive unwanted attention. Some sites go further with their safety measures and manually vet every profile before it's posted.

How much can be done for free
Free online dating sites exist, and some are not bad, but to have the best chance of meeting the right person you need to go where the most people are, and the best services attract the most people. Of course, they didn't get to be the best by being free and so at some point you may need to pay a registration fee. But even on the premium dating sites, often much can be done completely free, and we check out just how much.

Site speed and ease of navigation
Speed is important when you're checking out all those profiles. And it doesn't matter how many members a dating site has, if you can't find them and they can't find you, it's not much use to anyone so navigation is important too!