As one the biggest and best known dating sites in the UK, Match.com is in a position to offer its 'make love happen' guarantee. If you sign up for an initial 6 month package (see below for prices) and then fail to find love with 6 months, they will give you another 6 months free. With a staggering 4.6 million UK profiles available you probably have a better chance of finding a number of potential 'matches' here than any other UK dating site. Equally, you have a good chance of someone perfect finding you too.
Match.com claims to have created more than a million successful relationships worldwide. They are a substantial presence in the online dating circles across the globe, and this wealth of experience is reflected in their easy-to-use website design and search engine.
We feel Match.com deserves our strongest recommendation both as a general dating website but also for the more niche enquiries. The specifics of their search engine allow you not just to define that you would like, for example, a tall, blonde 25-35 beauty, but equally will let you narrow your search by appearance, lifestyle and background - all for free. Mutual matching (where only profiles of people matching your set of criteria and whom you match theirs), and sending and receiving 'winks' (an informal message of interest) is also free. To email or instant message other members, however, you must be a fully paid up member which also comes with significant bonus features, including allowing you to see who has been viewing your profile, which is great if you don't want to spend hours trawling through hundreds of profiles. Members can also get MSN and text alerts to their mobiles when a new message arrives.
Getting started
To help you build your profile, you will initially fill in a substantial set of questions ranging from basics like your age, appearance, hobbies etc to more detailed information such as likes and dislikes, pets, and your diet! Equally you then get to fill in a quite a few defining details about who you would like to to meet, from their eye colour to their income and profession, and to rate how important these characteristics are to you. There are helpful hints along the way if your new to this or lacking in inspiration, especially when it comes to your description and 'dating headline' which can be a bit of a challenge.
Having filled in your profile you will able to add a photo (we highly recommend you do as this will increase viewing of your profile dramatically), and start searching. Basic search allows you choose gender, age and approximate location of other members, as well as letting you select only those with photos and those who are currently online. With so many members this will throw up a vast number of profiles, so thankfully (and unusually) Match.com lets you narrow this down by a series of lifestyle, appearance, and background questions - still all for free.
For specialist matches, such as sexuality, religion, education, body type etc, Match.com - because of its large database - is still able to offer a good range of prospects, making it a great all round service for most people.
Prices: The initial profile, photo upload, and profile searching is all free. If you wish to initiate contact with another member, other than by a 'wink' you will need to subscribe.
Membership costs:
- 1 month: £22.80
- 3 months: £45.65
- 6 months: £65.25*
*The six month package is eligible for the 'make love happen' guarantee, so paying for 6 months will actually get you 12 if you meet the criteria (having a photo on your profile and contacting at least 5 other members a month for example - please see Match.com T&Cs for details) which represents excellent value for money at the equivalent to less than £5.45 a month.
Match.com is perhaps the biggest and best known UK dating site...and even comes with a 'make love happen' guarantee!
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Internet Dating Basics