Online Dating - is Match.Com For You?

In the world of online dating sites, Match.com is perhaps the biggest and best known. See if it has what you're looking for.

What has made Match.com so big and well known in the internet dating arena?

To begin with, Match.com was one of the first online dating sites to take hold. Match.com has built a reputation of providing a user friendly and thorough online dating profile service, allowing singles from all over the country and many parts of the world to advertise their own availability and to search for other singles that may interest them.

What is special about Match.com's online dating profile?

Match.com provides one of the thorough profile systems in the online dating world. From detailed personal information from appearance to income to education to religious preference and interests, Match allows internet daters to share and evaluate a lot of information about potential love interests to help them make better picks about who they contact.

Match.com also provides a number of different sections for internet daters to express themselves, allowing them to write short essays in answer to a number of questions and giving them room for long essays to describe themselves and what they are looking for in a significant other.

But, as with all such tools, the information you get from a Match.com profile is only as good as the individual filling in the blanks and writing the essays. If an internet dater is dishonest about themselves, Match has no way of knowing. Still, assuming mostly honest patrons, Match.com provides what I believe is the best and most complete profile templates of any online dating site out there today.

What's special about Match.com's online dating search capability?

Since Match.com provides such a thorough profile template, it also happens to have one of the best search capabilities. You can put in a lot of very detailed criteria in searching for your online love interests. You can even search for key words - things that other Match.com members may have written about in their profile essays that weren't in the actual question and answer sections. While not perfect, this function can sometimes help narrow a search down even further. For instance, if you like horses, you may search for the word "horse". This may retrieve for you an essay that says something like, "I enjoy riding my horse in the hills after work." On the other hand, it may get you an essay that says, "I like to horse around." Still, it is one additional function to help you look for the man or woman of your dreams.

You can also search by distance from where you live, or whole states or countries. You may search for people currently on line or ask to only receive profiles with pictures. And you may choose to set up many searches, say in different areas or looking for different attributes. Match.com has many options to help your online dating search work best for you.

Can you set up automatic searches on the Match.com online dating service?

You can definitely set up a search that will automatically send you new searches each day. You choose which of your searches to do this with or to have the system choose for you.

What does it take to communicate with Match.com matches?

Unlike other online dating services like eHarmony, as long as you are a paid member, you can contact other internet daters on the Match.com site as soon as you find them. You may send them an email or, if you're a little shy, you may just send them a "wink" to indicate you are interested. Most people tend to prefer an email - At least a line or two to show a touch of your personality, your sincerity and to tell them what you found intriguing or appealing about their profile, rather than just a spam "wink".

Does Match.com provide any other resources for online dating?

Match.com also has tips and articles for dating and relationships and for getting the most out of using the site. Match.com does not provide detailed questionnaire's to assess your compatibility with other online daters, like eHarmony does, but rather acts as an introductory service, sharing information about other potential dates with people but leaving the power in your hands to do with that information what you will. Match.com does have a sister company called Chemistry.com that is set up more like eHarmony with the detailed personality/compatibility screening feature. Still, for my money, I prefer to do my own choosing and make my own assessments of who I'm attracted to and who I feel is best suited for me.

Match.com seems to attract the broadest array of online daters. Still, who is to tell where we will each find out soulmate?