Online Dating Services — Top 50

 


Our Review and Scoring Process for the Top 50 Dating Services

We hold you, our readers, as our top priority here at OnlineHookupSites. This is why we strive to bring you dating site reviews that allow you to gain the insight you need to determine what online dating services will work best for you. We never attempt to force our opinions on you. We simply guide you through what we have found on a particular site — the good and the bad. We respect and value your intelligence. We report our findings in such a way that allows you to judge for yourself if a specific dating site will be right for you.

Why We Do What We Do

We realize that each of you will have your own definition of what a good dating service is. We are also aware that each of you will expect different things from a dating service. This is why we cover a wide range of online dating platforms. From those which brands are well known —to those which are just getting off the ground. No matter the niche or membership size, we review every type of site because we know that the more informed you are, the better your online dating experience will be.

Our Site Review Methodology

Our review process consists of three parts. The research and testing phase, followed by the analytical and scoring phase and concluding with the write-up phase.

The Research and Testing Phase

Our editorial team is constantly searching for online dating services to review and update. Our teams of site testers join each site to be reviewed and engage on the platform over a period of multiple days. Our individual testers function as an off-site team meaning that they access the sites to be reviewed from different parts of the United States, Canada, and the U.K. This is what allows us to gauge the performance of a site across geographic distances, population sizes, and other metrics. In other words, it is what allows us to be as genuine as possible regarding the performance of a site.

When the testing period is over, our testers participate in an online meeting and discuss their individual experiences on the site. They discuss the strengths and weaknesses of the site from their perspective. This is what allows us to detect patterns in the performance of the site. It makes it possible for us to generate a list of pros and cons for each site that is succinct and truly representative of the site in question.

The Analytical and Scoring Phase

Once our teams of testers have concluded with their work, our editorial team enters the mix. They review the observations presented by the testers, engage with them online to clarify any grey areas, and then begin constructing an outline of the performance evaluation of the site.

Part of this process includes generating numeric scores for different key areas of a site. These include popularity, value, features, quality of members, safety, and customer satisfaction.

We chose to score each of these areas because your own feedback told us that they were the areas that most influenced your opinion of a dating service. We score each area with a numeric score ranging from 0 to 100. The higher the score, the better the site’s performance in that area.

1. Popularity

We base this score on several factors. Membership size, number of years in operation, growth trends, feedback from actual users, social media cred, etc.

2. Value

An inexpensive or free site is not necessarily a bad dating service. Likewise, an expensive dating site is not automatically an excellent one either. We determine the value of the dating service that we review based on the quality of the user experience that they offer and contrasting it with the expectations that they generate.

3. Features

When online dating services first appeared over two decades ago, features were rustic. However, since internet speeds were slow back then, the lack of innovative features was tolerated.

Flash forward to the present and we are now surrounded by high-speed connections, super-fast computers, and our ever-present smartphones. Features on a dating site today need to be relevant, fast-performing and honed for the niche and audience that they are targeting.

Our score for features takes into account the number of features the site offers, their technical performance, originality, relevance, user-friendliness and cross-platform capability.

4. Quality of Members

When you get down to it, the membership of a dating site is what makes or breaks it. This is why we take an in-depth look at the membership base of every site we review. This includes its size, the gender ratio, the breakdown in age and geographic location — among other metrics. We also take into account the experience that our testers had in interacting with other members on the site.

5. Safety

We score the safety of each site by checking to make sure that they have privacy and security policies in place to safeguard their users. We also rundown reports of complaints made against the site gathered from external sources and ascertain whether those safety and privacy concerns are legitimate or if they are just hearsay.

Features that allow for the blocking of troublesome members, robust profile authentication options, and a strong customer support department are also areas that we look at in coming up with a site’s safety score.

6. Customer Satisfaction

The main task of our testers is to gauge the level of customer satisfaction that the average user of the dating site would derive. This includes how likely the user would be to find a compatible partner, how long it would take them, ease of use of the site’s interface, and the number of glitches found on the platform.

Mind you, the customer satisfaction score is more a measure of usability and functionality, not a final aggregate score of the entire site.

The Write-Up

While our scoring system can offer invaluable information on a dating service, we understand that many of you value experiencing a dating site from the point of view of those who have used it. In our case, our testers.

Our editorial team writes-up each review in a way that allows you to get a feel for what the site offers every step of the way. From the registration process to building your profile to engaging with other members —each dating site review that we write places you front and center as a potential future user of the site.

Our review write-up also includes an insert that is attached to our site scores. We refer to this as “The Final Word.” There you will find a succinct abstract of the overall impression that our testers and editors have of the site as well as the aggregate score.

That’s How We Do It

Well, that’s how we do it. We do it to offer you value in the form of reliable and actionable information. We hope that you see it the same way. Never hesitate to drop us a line with suggestions on how we can improve our site reviews.