AOL is shuttering it’s Love.com dating service July 31st. Match.com will be taking over the main AOL dating portal.
From the Love.com Terms of Service:
The love.com service will cease operations on 9/01/05. All subscribers to love.com who have a subscription renewal date after 8/31/05 will continue to receive service through the SpringStreet Network of Personals sites.After 7/31/05 love.com will no longer access the service at the URL www.love.com. After this date the love.com service will be found at http://personals.love.com. After 7/31/05 all traffic to the URL www.love.com will be automatically redirected to love@AOL at http://pc.channel.aol.com/love. A link will be posted on the Love@AOL after 7/31/05 for navigation back to love.com.
SpringStreet has been driving Love.com for a while, and If I remember correctly their contract is up.
A domain name like Love.com should be a natural traffic driver. AOL, like Yahoo, can advertise across their own network to pull in visitors, reducing their CPA significantly.
The SpringStreet credits system (Pay-to-contact) is inexpensive for consumers and probably not delivering the revenue that AOL has come to expect from it’s subscription services.
Match now powers AOL’s dating site as well as MSN Dating & Personals. Nice exposure across two of the largest portals. It will be interesting to see how Match traffic rankings compare to Yahoo over the next few months.
Josh Stevens, if you’re out there, feel free to chime in and clarify the situation.
