Comments on: Searching on Match.com

By: Bob Gaines

Bob Gaines — Mon, 07 Jul 2008 16:43:36 +0000

Just went to check out new dating program that everyone seems to be discussing, ButterfliesAgain.com. Very Impressive. I’ve enrolled in several, this one took only 15 minutes.

By: Dr. Joel Block

Dr. Joel Block — Thu, 03 Jan 2008 16:07:16 +0000

Since the biggest complaint of dating site subscribers is misrepresentation, a partial solution is a LEGITIMATE compatibility test that discourages lying.

Wanna see one that takes 15 minutes and is more engaging and powerful than e-harmony’s test? Go to http://www.ButterfliesAgain.com, check it out and talk to me…

By: mauricev

mauricev — Thu, 03 Jan 2008 00:53:43 +0000

Actually, the issue is the limit. It’s actually searching from the pool of everyone who has ever been on match! Sort it by date and by the time you scroll halfway through the set of 512, the most recent login is more than three weeks ago. I’d many of those profiles aren’t active any longer! Remove those profiles from the searchable database and that would fix two of the three bugs. BTW, I believe OKCupid does this; they call it “refrigerating” the account.

By: Tom

Tom — Wed, 02 Jan 2008 20:04:44 +0000

Sorting an arbitrarily large set of results is a potentially resource intensive process, so every site probably has a limit. If you search on OKCupid, you’ll see that they explicitly say something to the effect of “Your search returned thousands of results; here is a random selection of 200 of them.”

The issue isn’t the limit, it’s the lack of transparency (combined with the ever changing nature) in how search works on the various sites.

The comment about probability of replying (Markus) doesn’t really apply to Match since I’m pretty sure that they don’t even let you send email unless you pay, but it does point out that the services and their customers don’t necessarily have the same priorities in optimizing the search algorithms.

btw – the formatting on the original article makes it impossible to tell which parts are David’s and which parts are quotes from Maurice.

By: Hubbs

Hubbs — Tue, 01 Jan 2008 22:14:15 +0000

Match.com is a scam… I tried it and found no one worth responding to. I tried to cancel my subscription after the first two weeks of seeing what they had to offer – then I got an email that said I had to reactivate my account in order to read it – when I did – unbeknownst to me – it reupped my renewal and I just got a deduction from my checking account for $60. I protested the charge with Match.com and was told “Match.com does not have a refund policy” so in other words, I was tricked into renewing and even though as soon as I noticed it, I cancelled again, they still charged my account 3 months later. THIS IS A TOTAL SCAM – DON’T FALL FOR IT…

By: may

may — Tue, 25 Dec 2007 06:58:46 +0000

Once I have heard that the website :www.tallhub.com ,is a good place for singles to make friends and dating,maybe you can go and have a try.

By: mauricev

mauricev — Tue, 25 Dec 2007 03:08:38 +0000

Yes, I have compared other sites. Yahoo generally has the best search of all because 1) it didn’t really have serious bugs like match and the keyword searches searched on word roots, so you a search on “geek” would pick up “geeky”. For whatever odd reason, the word root searching stopping working a while ago and the recent update makes it difficult to do repeated keyword searches. Yahoo’s biggest problem is that they don’t have that many profiles (at least for women in NYC).

Most other sites don’t even have keyword searching. I think keyword searching is very useful because most of the other parameters are just clerical; they ignore the meat of the profile.

Another problem with many sites’ search is that they don’t take into account missing answers to profile questions. For example, if one searches for “not sure” or “definitely not” to wanting children, the search will skip profiles that leave the answer blank.

By: Markus

Markus — Mon, 24 Dec 2007 19:49:29 +0000

The results are most likely based on the probably that they will respond to you. The higher the probability the higher that the recieving user will convert to a paid member.

By: meir

meir — Sun, 23 Dec 2007 18:15:24 +0000

mauricev – very cool analysis.

Have you ever done a comparison between different sites search? While Google is reputedly the best search engine, Iâ€™m wondering how you would compare the search engines from the various major dating sites.