The October rankings are live. Here are the major changes…
Hitwise: Free dating site Plentyoffish sidles up two spots to #7. Adult dating site Mate1 launches up from #15 to #8. Singlesnet moves up three spots to #9. Perfect Match is bumped from #7 to #10. BlackPeoplemeet moves up two more spots to #12. Alexa: AsiaFriendFinder disappears from #2 spot off the top 10. Amigos also. Plentyoffish moves up three spots to #6. Singlesnet joins the ranks at #8. Nielsen: MySpace enters the chart this month at 1st place…from nowhere. Friendster also enters the chart at #12. Looks like Nielsen just added MySpace and Friendster as personals sites. Date.com moves up three spots to #11.
Thanks for the include Mark.
It’s funny how Date.com shows up as #4 on Alexa, and #11 on Neilson, but never appears in the top 15 on Hitwise.
You should interview these 3 companies and have them discuss their methodology.
Thanks for the include Mark.
It’s funny how Date.com shows up as #4 on Alexa, and #11 on Neilson, but never appears in the top 15 on Hitwise.
You should interview these 3 companies and have them discuss their methodology.
#44 to #7 in 11 months. I remember at the dating conference mark laughed at the thought plentyoffish even getting into the top 20.
The nice thing about my site is its completely automated so i can go on vacation and check in every couple of days to see if its still up and running. No employees, No office, No problems 🙂
Marcus… I’ve always beleived that you could do it. I think you’ll go to #1
;0)
Looking at your new search optimized site structure Meir, I have a feeling Alexa is far more accurate. Well done.
Bill
I like that Mark posts the results from Hitwise, Alexa, and Nielsen. They all have different ways of measuring site traffic, so not one will be the same. From all 3 you can get a nice overall picture. I wonder if Google Analytics (urchin) will start posting website ranks for sites that participate in their stats program. Now that will be interesting to see, since the metric will be the same for all sites and more accurate. Instead of using browser bars, ISP logs, black boxes, etc..
P.S. Hope to join you guys in the top 10 soon 😉
#1 would be nice 🙂 These ranking systems are a completely joke. When i’m bored I like to see how far I can move myself up one and how low you can go on another. A while back i was number 70 of 78 on comscore and top 10 on hitwise.
Alexa ranking is just as easy to mess around with, randomly display a ad for the alexa toolbar and get 40 users to install it. 40 dailly alexa toolbar users is enough to get ranked around 2000.
But at any rate a respectable score in alexa and hitwise is a great way to get a lot of free marketing.
I agree with Markus. Ignore the rankings. Guess how much they mean to consumers? Nothing. Zip, zero nada. Marginally of interest to advertisers as well, who are after demographics, not raw visitors numbers.
Revenue, conversions and retention is of more interest. The industry will take whatever it can get. Rankings, origination, and metrics from Hitwise, Nielsen and Comscore are useful but are to be taken with a pinch of salt. Alexa numbers are free, Hitwise is $12k+ a year, Comscore $20k+, Nielsen more…last time I looked (in 2004).
As far as end user awareness, they are not generally aware of the Alexa rankings. However, wouldn’t be a bad thing if they were. I interviewed on BBC Radio last week regarding date bait and advised the audience to consider the site’s size. In UK they can do a general search to gauge size. In USA they have Alexa rank to help judge a site’s size as well. If a site with a 500k Alexa ranking is sending daily winks/flirts for a user in smalltown USA…that would generally seem a little unlikely.
Users can see the rankings on OPW and choose a suitable, sizable site accordingly. Sometimes, size does matter.
Mark Brooks
Editor
Online Personals Watch
Well traffic matters a lot when you are trying to sell something. Depending on what a unique visitor is defined as and what tracking software is used plentyoffish.com is worth 40 to 80 million according to business 2.0
http://www.business2.com/b2/web/articles/0,17863,1135200-4,00.html
Lets not forget those numbers are also important to share holders and venture capitalists.
From a consumer point of view, any of the top 20 rated dating sites are good, outside of that everythings pretty much a scam.
Looks like Markus is buying the drinks at iDate. 😉
No idate for me, just lots and lots of programing. These suits against match and yahoo have caused a flood of traffic to mine.
http://www.metricsmarket.com This site is the best free measurement system.
Hitwise filters out spam, so if you take the relative difference in hitwise and here you can tell what perfectage of the sites traffic comes from spam. So mate1 is about 30-40% popup traffic and ads.
1 Yahoo Personals
2 Match.com 20,556,000 visitor sessions
3 eHarmony 4,503,700 visitor sessions
4 Gay
5 American Singles 4,095,100 visitor sessions
6 TRUE 1,999,600 visitor sessions
7 Plentyoffish 1,889,700 visitor sessions
8 Mate1 2,651,800 visitor sessions
9 Singlesnet 1,100,700 visitor sessions
10 Perfect Match 1,860,500 visitor sessions
11 Webdate 1,621,500 visitor sessions
12 Blackpeoplemeet 1,849,800 visitor sessions
13 Cupid 818,000 visitor sessions
14 HotorNot
15 MSN Match
Please help confirm if blackpeoplemeet.com a legimite website. I join and have not been able to access the links to chat and review message. I read it was part of a scam along with Zencon Technologies.
Why is it so difficult to find correct contact information on zencon technologies. It appears that this company is engaging in all types of unethical behavior, billing practices ,ripp ofs.I have contacted cnn..and a local investigative news agency, currently interviewing private investigator to track this company and its bad buisness practices, and turn the information over to the Texas attorney Generals Office and the U.S. Attorneys office(interstate orginized crime).
Jay
Anything new on Zencon?
I almost subscribed to BABYBOOMERPeopleMeet.com and I saw that there was a connection. Connection? Hah! Zencon owns BABYBOOMERPeopleMeet.com!
Does anyone know how Zencon can continue to blatently rip people off year after year after year?