Hitwise has issued a report on the balance of the sexes on popular dating sites. The numbers measure traffic, not membership on the specific sites. Right there I see a red flag. Without transparency into how Hitwise figures out if you’re a man or a woman, what good are these types of stats?
Bill Tancer, Hitwise GM of Global Research:
The more money and time involved in signing up to a dating site, the more the site would skew female. The more free pictures were available the more the site would skew male. Women use online dating as an actual service for what it was intended. Some male users are using dating sites more just to look at pictures of women.
I personally don’t believe for a minute that more women than men use the majority of dating sites. It’s mainly a marketing ruse and nobody can prove the numbers.
Tancer’s strongest quote is that traffic on dating sites is trending downward as more and more people use social networking sites to find dates.
Lots more interesting stats on gender balance.
Match is far ahead of other dating sites when it comes to popular dating search terms for January 2007.
