Contrary to poplar belief, and this mention in New dating websites find niches, I am a big fan of niche dating sites.
“Imagine if there were 3,000 search engines,” says David Evans, a consultant for the online dating industry. “It would be ridiculous. But there are 2,000-plus online dating sites in the U.S. alone.”
To clarify my position, I understand that it is important for certain niche demographics to feel as though they are searching and being found by “their people,” be that race, religion, sexual orientation or geography.
Plenty of large niche sites have taken umbrage with my statements against niche dating sites, and that’s to be expected. If you’re making millions every year off in your corner of the Internet, more power to you.
My point is that there is an incredible amount of inefficiency in online dating marketing that a monolithic database of singles will go a long way to address. Think about the redundancy of personnel, marketing spend and infrastructure that is replicated across scores of dating sites.
Match is in the middle of redesigning the People Media websites. How long until Match integrates profiles from People Media’s plethora of niche sites into the Match database? That sounds like the next step in the integration process.
As a stop-gap measure, perhaps all boomers or African-Americans on Match may see the “Try Chemistry” link on the site replaced with “Try [niche] dating at [niche site].”
Still a fan of niche dating sites?
Go do every web search this week on a different search engine.
Imagine having to subscribe to retrieve search results.
Imagine if every 5th search result was a broken link or a link to spam/malware (ok bad example).
Niche dating sites are here to stay for the time being, at least until the top dating sites hoover up the rest of the top niche sites and integrate them. Spark Networks is really the only large niche network left, and who’s going to buy them? (Plenty of companies kicking the tires, that never ends, but given investor battles going on over the valuation of the company…)
I tell you what, I’ll meet you in the middle. Niche sites are great if you are a minority or a well-established religion, but for the rest of us, we’re out of luck. The only nich we can self-identify with is serious or casual dater, and that hardly helps.
If someone would start a decent dating site aggregator I will shut up about Niche sites.
I can’t tell you how many “dating site search aggregators” I’ve worked with over the years. Some were able to get to the point where Match was officially sending them links to profiles every day, the majority never took the time to partner with top sites. The ones they had deals with were crappy free sites which acted more as a detracting force on the overall user experience than a “Wow, this is very cool, one search across the entire online dating universe, here’s my credit card!”
I should have been clearer in my previous discussions about niche sites. I have no problem with them, my issue is that I’m not going to be happy until someone comes up with a dating site aggregator that actually works. At that point, the more niches the better. Ok?
Until then the closest thing we have to dating site aggregators is lead-generation companies with SEO ninjas who bid up dating keywords, grab the leads and re-sell them to dating sites. This is another interesting market worth further discussion.
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A problem the aggregator faces is one the dating sites themselves create: missing or indeterminate answers. For example, OKCupid is littered with blank profiles. Zoosk has different profile criteria depending on when you signed up. And what’s up “unknown” for the marital status field? How can one not know one’s own marital status? Is it a joke? PlentyofFish allows indeterminate answers like “prefer not to say”. A good aggregator will need to take these into account, but presently even the dating sites’ own search doesn’t do always do that.
The ideal is for the dating sites to agree to a common profile platform. OKCupid’s profiles are by and away capable of being more complete than any other and they should take the lead the in this role.
Agree about empty profiles, not sure about different profile fiends depending on Zoosk singup time. Unknown marital status has to do with Facebook where people don’t list their situation.
Take when Are You Interested used to display Match profiles along with AYI people. Match would send batchs of profiles once a day and AYI would embed them in the display stream. The aggregator usually never sees the actual profiles, just a a few fields.
I think the jury is still out on common profile fields. So much would have to change for there to be a common profile, don’t hold your breath.
Dave:
My biggest disagreement with you is that you do not recognize that for some people in certain niches, they want not only certain profiles but they want a specific kind of experience. You generally paint all niche sites with the same broad brush although you finally mentioned an exception for religious and ethnic dating sites. Not all niches require a unique experience not to they represent an “interest” that is so strong that people will make it a significant part of a marriage decision. ie. dog lovers, outdoors, Apple Fan etc.
While I understand the “efficiency” of your argument I believe what you desire is a very cold, programmatic approach to online dating which I do not think works for everyone. I also think you come to online dating from a very Male perspective and for those of us who run a site we have to balance pleasing men and women.
I think I clearly stated that I understand the value of niche dating sites and I’ve mentioned specific niches many times. I don’t understand what you mean about pleasing men and women.
Not sure what’s cold and programmatic about giving people the tools to meet suitable partners across multiple dating sites. There are plenty of people who belong to niches on mainstream dating sites. Why should they have to pay multiple subscriptions to meet their match?
Would you allow your site to share profile search results with a dating site search engine (Google for dating)? You would still have control over the user experience, think of the search engine as a lead generation tool. Hard to argue with that.
They way in which men and women use dating sites is often very different and those differences are even more stark within certain communities.
So what you are saying is you want to be able to search across multiple sites and you want to pay a single fee to do so? What about the acquisition costs of each individual sites?
I have no problem with aggregate sites if they are respectable and do not tarnish my brand by having our profiles show up. I am not really sure why Match.com does not work closely with sites like CatholicMatch, Jdate, ChristianCafe and other strong niche brands who have a lot of credibility in their respective communities. It would provide a broader audience for us while raising Match’s credibility with certain niche customers by promoting brands these people trust.
Men and women absolutely use dating sites differently.
Look at lead-gen sites, they could create a more thorough user experience and sign up more partners, it’s not a stretch from what they do today. Basically they would be affiliate marketers running a dating search engine. The more I think about this more it makes sense for the lead-gen sites to do this. They already have the funds and some of the know-how to create a meta-search engine. Some have been doing this at a very basic level for years. They don’t know branding though and they are focused on GoogleAdwords, there not much else to what they are doing except being masters at landing page optimization and conversions (no small feat.)
Aggregators are sending you leads, thats it. No effect on your brand if they do it right.
There is not enough money in most niches for Match to notice. Or there are too many headaches involved in doing deals.
Lots of dating sites buy and sell leads with each other. It’s finding the right partner that converts with the highest-quality traffic. That’s where the lead-gen folks really shine, but you pay dearly for the resulting traffic.
There are so many people who have a particular niche they like or brand of dating sites that they are comfortable using. People pay for the dating sites they enjoy using and may have success on find someone.
There are so many free dating sites out there that offer both free service as well as premium service that give the user more options. I don’t agree with grouping niches together.
I think Niche sites serve primarily as a strong marketing vehicle for a group that hopefully has enough potential customers to pay for the service. I think niche sites owners should be paid for their product and they can share profiles with outside sites, but if someone wants to connect with those singles, that niche site owner should get paid for that matchmaking. I think a site like Match.com does very well marketing to a “generic caucasian majority” and most singles can filter down further for interests and hobbies. The niche sites take more risks because their smaller minority niches might not have enough paying users if not marketed properly for Blacks, Jewish, Christians, etc.
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