More Catholic Singles Use Dating Sites - Online Personals Watch: News on the Online Dating Industry and Business

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Sam Moorcroft, ChristianCafe.com

How do you define a "member"? This term is bandied about by dating sites all the time. Some context is in order.

a) Is a member a hit to the website?
b) Is a member a unique visitor to the website?
c) Is a member someone who has created an account, no matter how bare-bones?
d) Is a member someone who has visited, ever (even if that was in 2003)?
e) Is a member someone who has visited in the past year?
f) Is a member someone who has visited in the past 3 months?
g) Is a member someone who has visited in the past 2 weeks?

Which is it? It isn't 500,000 (if picking on CatholicMatch.com or CatholicSingles.com). It isn't 12 million. It certainly isn't 20 million.

Here's the acid test: how many unique users - with actual profiles - are on your site right at this moment? 200? 500? 1,000?

That's a more accurate measure than anything else. We have 649 online right now.

Or, I could say we have (had) more than 2 million members. No, make that 5 million. Well, that's true, too, when put in context. Otherwise, these are completely meaningless numbers.

Sam

twitter.com/rosswilliams

As usual Sam, absolutely spot on.

Member numbers mean nothing - I could buy 1million members for a few thousand dollars, it really is meaningless nowadays. I know of a few companies who have bought millions of profiles.

What matters is online users - that's far more meaningful, how many users are engaging with the site.

And that's what matters to our users - they don't want to wade through thousands of stale (or fake!) profiles. They want genuine, active users who engage with the site and will respond to their communication. That's how dating sites generate long-term SUSTAINABLE revenues through their users.

Ross

Saïd

@sam +1

sam/ross, anyone else who runs a dating site: what constitutes an "active" member for you guys? i typically use a 3 month benchmark.

Sam Moorcroft, ChristianCafe.com

Said,

Yeah, 3 months (of no activity) has been our benchmark for years. We go one step further: we auto-remove them nightly from the active database, to keep it fresh. Besides you and us, Said (and Ross?), what other dating sites do this? I don't know of any. They are too busy claiming 500,000 or 1 million or 15 million profiles.

As Ross said, "...users don't want to wade through thousands of stale (or fake!) profiles...."

Sam

Saïd

thanks sam.

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