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Dating Sites in Decline

Published February 23rd, 2007 in Tech & VC

40489986_dd96b6a285_m.jpgWow! Dramatic dating-site search decline reported by Markus Frind (CEO of PlentyofFish.com).

I have been tracking domain name searches on yahoo for the big paid dating sites. Domain name searches translates into word of mouth and signal trends in paid membership about 8+ months from now.

I’m comparing Jan 06 to Jan 07 and here are the results.

Eharmony 29% decline
Americansingles 68% decline
match.com 71% decline
cupid.com 21% decline
mate1.com 37% decline
perfectmatch.com 78% decline
Lavalife 70%+ decline

Nielson says that traffic declined 20% last year. I think the hit this year will be a lot bigger and many dating sites won’t be around for 2008.

I have trouble believing that people are actually dating less online, unless the user experience is really that bad… (note: according to Markus, the average length of a user on any given dating site is 3 months… pretty pathetic compared to Facebook, I’m sure).

Do you think this behavior has moved away from the dating sites and more towards social networks? Also, what effect is Craigslist having on this sector? Have they “scorched the earth”, like in other forms of classifieds?

4 Responses to “Dating Sites in Decline”  

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  1. 1 Zoltan Mar 13th, 2007 at 6:49 am

    Andrew, in my opinion this industry is not declining.
    The reason of the name search decline is because new players enter the market and even plentyoffish, the only free datimng site a while ago, has a strong competition.
    Just search for: find singles free or free dating site and you will see what I mean.

    More players = Less Searches / player but the overall search on dating sites is definitely higher than it was a year ago.

  2. 2 Zoltan Mar 13th, 2007 at 7:50 am

    What’s my association with dating industry? Not too much… Other than the fact that I am running a free dating site as well: - http://www.onelovenet.com -. It was only launched in December 2006, although I had everything prepared in 2003. Even a domain name (www.1love4u.info) which was never used…
    But, at that time I had other priorities and postponed this project. I was busy with my B2B Network.

    Since I launched the site, I saw a constant increase in search engine traffic, well, this is my fault as well… :) I spent time and money promoting it, but it looks like the traffic is growing, the number of members is growing and soon, we will reach the critical mass… hopefully. :)

  3. 3 The Visionary Jun 26th, 2007 at 3:53 pm

    Even on free dating sites like Plenty of Fish, the e-dating experience is pretty bad. Why would they pay money to have bad dating when it’s for free? There are more frustrations and disappointments than success stories. Given that kind of odds and some time wasting experiences, many people on date sites probably no longer care? That could be a cause of declining dating?

  4. 4 mark Sep 9th, 2007 at 4:36 am

    Hi guys. Dating isn’t on decline at all!
    Some sites are better than other, simple.
    For example try to surf on http://www.qmpeople.com and you will fine that not onoy paid sites can offer good contents for users.

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