7.9/10 Overall Rating

Pros & Cons

Pros

Cons

The Review

Editor’s Summary

For those of you acquainted with Matchmaker.com, you’ll find that Date.com looks awfully familiar -- not surprising when you realize that they are both owned by Avalanche, LLC. Launched in the late 90’s, Date.com is a standard dating site with an uncluttered and easy-to-navigate layout. The site hosts a varied pool of members, which makes it a good place to explore your personal preferences. And, since it’s free to sign up, develop a profile and send messages, it’s one of the better options for communicating inexpensively. Not to mention it’s very low commitment, since it only takes a few minutes to create an account.

Once signed up, members have the option of expanding their profiles by filling out a variety of open-ended questions, which is a good way to describe yourself and explain what you’re looking for on Date.com. You can also upload up to 11 photos, but each one can take up to 24 hours to appear since they all need to get approved by site administration before going up.

As for finding people to connect with, Date.com provides a couple different way of searching. Members have access to the Basic Search menu (like a quick search) at all times on the right-hand side of their screen, or they can dig deeper by using the Advanced Search feature. This option allows you to select what specific looks, faith, education, drinking habits, etc. you want to see in your results. Search settings can also be saved for later consultation.

On the subject of saving, members can save others’ profiles to their Favorites, which is helpful for keeping track of all potential interests. Consider it a “little black book” of flirtations.



Members can interact with each other a few different ways, including via the site’s emailing system (free), instant chat (for paying members only), and Mega Wink (free, but you need to pay to personalize the feature). Using Mega Wink is kind of like throwing a catchall net into the pool -- you don’t exactly know what fish you’re going to collect. That aside, it’s a good way to get the ball rolling and warm up your chatting chops.

Once you get the hang of Date.com and exhaust all the perks of the free account, you may want to upgrade to one of the site’s payment plans. Doing this will get you access to some of the more advanced features, such as custom Mega Winks and instant chat.

IN-DEPTH

Sign-Up Process

It takes no more than five minutes to set up an account on Date.com. All you need to do is answer a few basic questions about your appearance, age and location. Once you have a profile, then you have the choice of filling out more detailed descriptions about yourself, things you like doing in your free time, favorite date spots, and how you imagine your ideal date. There’s also a section in your profile for you to add details like favorite movies, books, sports, and hobbies. Overall, for a simple dating site, Date.com is pretty thorough.

Note: You can indicate that you’re interested in guys, girls, or both. That said, Gay.Date.com (a Date.com counterpart) is designed specifically for the gay experience.

Members/Interactions

Date.com seems to attract a pretty wide range of members, but the advanced search is a helpful and effective way to narrow down your results. You can also search by who’s online if you like the thrill of chatting with someone right away. Once you’ve selected a member to get in touch with, you have the choice to either send them an email, show interest via wink, or save them to your favorites.

Key Features

- Mega Wink lets you “blast a message to crowds of members [to] get tons of actions.” Date.com will suggest what message to send out, with examples like “Want to chat sometime?” or “Your profile is amazing.” Seems like a good way to get the ball rolling, but also a bit insincere to use too often. Otherwise, you can write your own Mega Wink message, but only if you’re a paying member.

- The Favorites feature lets you save profiles you’re interested in and archives them in a tab for easy access. Similarly, you can save certain search settings if you think that you will want to repeatedly browse a specific type of result.

- Site Activity is located in the top right-hand corner of your home page and is a great way to get a glance at all your profile stats, including: number of new messages, number of new members (+ near you), number of people presently active on IM, and how many people have viewed your profile.

Safety & Security

No ID confirmation, or criminal record check. Information remains private unless shared by members themselves. No way to block or report members.



Check out Date.com’s Privacy Policy for more information on their privacy procedures, and their Safety Points for more on safe online dating practices.

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