OPW -- Apr 2 -- Most major dating sites have a testimonials or success stories section featuring members who have met through the dating site in question, but how well populated and up to date are those success story sections? Online Personals Watch surveyed a selection of the top 30 dating properties in the U.S.A. and Europe and ranked them by the number of user success stories featured on their sites.
Ranking, Property, Number of success stories*
1. ChristianCafe.com, 1287
2. PlentyofFish, 470
3. JDate, 195
4. eHarmony, 160
5. Date, 128
6. American Singles, 100
7. HotorNot, 93
7. Yahoo Personals, 93
9. Match, 90
10. Cupid, 80
11. BlackPeopleMeet, 74
12. DatingDirect, 54
*As at March 30th, 2007.
Email [email protected] for the top 30 success story dating site rankings along with detailing of: the type of success stories featured, number of photos, initiation date of testimonials section, URL of testimonials pages. The success story rankings appear on the lower left bar of this site. In future months we will rank sites by the number of new testimonials they add each month. NOTE: These rankings only count success stories that are available to non-registrants to read. A 'non-registrant' is someone who has not logged in or registered. FULL ARTICLE @ PR NEWSWIRE
Mark,
Thanks for the post. Do you give bonus points for babies resulting from matches?;-)
We call them "Cafe babies" :)
We have another testimonial about a baby going up shortly. That's one every month so far in 2007.
Posted by: Sam Moorcroft, ChristianCafe.com | Apr 02, 2007 at 04:46 PM
Totally cool, Mark. I love it. What a great feature to highlight, rather than hyping fear of criminals, rapists, and child molestors. I have long been mystified by the dating sites' ignoring of their success stories, particularly since my husband and I are one of many examples -- we met on Match.com in 1998. And I remind Match.com of that on a regular basis, to no avail.
I collect success stories on my blog: http://www.find-a-sweetheart.com/blog/C9/ These stories are just the kind of inspiration that easily discouraged singles need. Dating sites (Match.com and Yahoo! Personals particularly), let's see more and more!!!
Posted by: Kathryn Lord | Apr 03, 2007 at 05:52 AM
A few thoughts on the featuring of success stories:
Like Christian Cafe - we run a Christian dating site - but its limited to the UK and Ireland - and we have several hundred success stories including babies.
We reckon that says something both about Christians being more prepared to get married and share the news than perhaps people from our secular site.
The difficulty with success stories is that:
- people don't always want to give permission to feature them on the front of a website. That is especially the case with photographs and full names. British people may be more reticent...and our media may have fewer qualms about copying them and printing them..
- its easy to make up success stories - we know plenty of sites which do.
- Also what constitutes a success story?
marriage
engagement (if people subsequently get married, does the site replace the engagement story)
great relationship?
good experience with the site.
good date?
baby?
And a question -
are the stats you have picked up all the success stories to date that a site features or just the yearly or monthly figures...
Jackie Elton
Posted by: Jackie Elton | Apr 04, 2007 at 06:55 AM
Hey there--
I am currently casting for a new show for ABC and we are
looking for all different types of recently married couples. The couples will compete in fun games and in the end, one lucky couple will WIN A DREAM HOUSE!!
Check us out at www.abcdreamhouse.com and please spread
the word to anyone else you think might be interested. This
really is an amazing opportunity!
Feel free to contact me with questions at [email protected]
Thanks!
Sharon
Posted by: Sharon | Apr 05, 2007 at 03:09 PM
I also help run a Christian dating site called Real Christian Singles.
There's photo galleries, forums, members searches and articles for Christian singles.
Thanks!
Posted by: Christian Dating | Aug 08, 2007 at 01:00 PM
Interesting Post!
You missed a site with plenty of success stories. Three pages of them and counting.
Single Christian Network. http://www.singleC.com
The count would top several of the sites listed.
Enjoy,
Clark, Founder
Posted by: Clark | Aug 29, 2007 at 10:36 AM