Online Dating at Match.com:
Greatest Strength: Extremely well-rounded, protective, professional dating site with a six-month guarantee for romantic success.
Greatest Weakness: Unless you commit a lot of time and money, it can take a long time to navigate through the many options it offers.
Cost: One month: $34.99,
Three months: $19.99/month,
Six months: $16.99/month; includes Match.com Guarantee Program for an additional six months free if no match is found.
Making the Most of Match.com:
Boasting over 15 million users with hundreds of thousands of success stories in a single year, Match.com reaches 37 countries with its online dating communities. Claiming that within six months you will no longer be cuddling just your pillow at night, this dating web site has established itself as the definitive online singles community.
When we read through Match.com, we definitely saw that they have been working toward perfection since they first began. With that date falling in 1995, they are the oldest web dating service available. Their layout is professional, catchy, and easy enough to follow; however, with so many different options for searching and dating, it can be a little bit daunting until you sit down and give the site a thorough browsing.
As with many dating sites, Match.com offers both free and paid accounts. The free membership carries a lot with it but makes you do the searching legwork. Still, with the wide range of options in their searches, love just might happen overnight. That is, assuming that you can do without the double-blind email service. That is only available to paid members. Those with a free account are able to create a profile, post photos, and send “winks”-a sort of e-flirt-but cannot go much further.
Getting into the community involves some pretty extensive profile-building but the upside is that Match automatically checks all uploaded profiles before letting them go fully public. You can search before then but not communicate; once both are running (within 72 hours), Match makes for a great dating resource. While searching, our favorite feature was a little sidebar that pops up whenever you view a personal and lists how you two match each other’s profiles. The layout, as we said, is excellent, the slogans are catchy, and the home page is readable and informational.
If you are looking for a fluffy, romantic, lovey-dovey sort of dating service, Match.com won’t cut it. Their approach to dating is almost businesslike. Even so, they seem to attract comers from all backgrounds; if there is any sort of commonality among all the users, it is that most of them seem to be the type that is jaded with the bar scene. Match capitalizes on that claiming that the price of its membership is the price of a couple of drinks. With that said, their grouping of communities both reflects the diversity and helps with the searching. Black, Latino, Asian, Christian, Jewish, Gay, and Lesbian communities, among others, all have the option of their own groups for searching. Between these and the helps that are offered such as online dating tips, general dating ideas, and video testimonials, Match.com covers the whole spread of online dating needs.
Frequently, Match.com posts discounts or free trial offers on theirs and others’ web sites. By subscribing to a paid online dating membership, several options open up. If you opt for the six-month package-which comes with the Match.com Guarantee Program-be sure to read the fine print. They will give you an additional six months free if you don’t find your match but you have to email and actively search on your own. While you are doing that, Match.com automatically runs your profile through a number of tests and suggests potential matches. With their approach to dating being so extensive, it is no wonder that Match.com is making itself more technologically accessible. They offer the ability to sync with your mobile or add other packages to your original deal, usually with a slight extra charge. Like we said-there’s a lot on this site.
With everything that you can do on Match, it is definitely the comprehensive dating experience-if you need that. Fifteen million users might be a little much but if that sort of size will get you where you want to be, this is the online dating resource for you. |
