Dating site evaluation: Date.com

October 27, 7:55 PMPhiladelphia Online Relationships ExaminerBryan Way

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For more information on reviews, see the site evaluation guide.

Advertising: Fountain of Lies. Though they certainly have the best name of any online dating site, Date.com’s assertion that they are the best in free online dating is laughable at best.

Layout: Acceptable. If you don’t want to answer the questions, you’re out of luck. Before moving on to the front page, you at least have to put down that you’d rather not answer the questions, which can get tedious. The layout is fairly basic, which is both good and bad; though it’s easy to navigate, it lacks any warmth whatsoever.

Profile Information: Comprehensive. The amount of information one can fill out is really almost staggering. Inclusive questions about both you and a prospective date give users a lot to go on. Though their essay sections leave something to be desired with their poor questions, users are granted enough freedom to balance that out. I especially enjoyed the healthy number of options for religion.

Relationship Options: Pathetic. Men and women can look for men and women, but, as usual, you can’t sign up to do both. Though the types of relationships are acceptable, again, one can only choose one to pursue.

Matching: Satisfactory. The matching criteria are fairly comprehensive and return good results. My only problem is that results can’t be ranked by the criteria; for example, you can’t rank users by distance.

People: Mostly Real. Considering how excruciating the sign-up process can be, I’d say most of the users are real people.

Communication: Limited. Uh-oh! Despite being the best free online dating site, you have to pay to talk to other members! Something tells me that bit of advertising wasn’t a legitimate mistake…

Pay For: Several Features. You can view profiles and send flirts, but anything beyond that is between $30 a month and $120 a year. That’s the most expensive ‘free’ I’ve ever heard of.

Grade: B-. Overall the site is solid, but lying about being free is never a good thing. If one were to want to sign up, $30 isn’t too bad for the average going rate of a pay site and the service they offer, but one might be better of sticking with Yahoo! Personals or Match.com.