Markus links to a great post comparing unique visitors vs. actual member logins to dating sites and show the top 10 rankings for each.
…Ranking online dating sites purely on visitor traffic is flawed; membership is a prerequisite to use the services, and member activity is the foundation of successful matchmaking. Looking at how members use a site gives a clearer picture of the online dating landscape, and changes these rankings dramatically.
Yahoo Personals grabbed the top rank on every measurement. This great overall performance shows a balance of both driving traffic to the service, and encouraging active participation.
While TRUE placed 2nd in visitors, its 8th rank in member logins indicates that much of this traffic came from TRUE’s intense (and apparently misguided) advertising efforts on youth oriented social networking sites. In addition True members represented a mere 8% of total visitors, less than a quarter of the market average.
Plentyoffish.com showed that free services can be successful; 9th in terms of visitors, the site leapt to 5th in member interaction. More importantly, it was one of 5 sites with more than 10 million member visits, putting it in a class with much higher trafficked sites and besting its next competitor by a multiple of 2x.
I’m glad to see the conversation getting away from raw traffic stats, which are less than useful when it comes to comparing dating site traffic.
