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Match.com vs. Yahoo! Personals Revision: 9-19-08 Yahoo! and Match.com are two of the giants in online dating sites. You've no doubt seen an ad for Yahoo! Personals on any number of sites out there, and Match.com even runs TV ads occasionally. Both of these sites also have a good number of users, although it's obvious Match.com beats out Yahoo! by a substantial amount, especially with senior users (Match.com came up with about 3 times more users between 40-70yrs in a simple test I did). For me, despite the number of available users, I find the quality of the two sites and their matches to be very close. I would assume there are other reviews similar to this one, but I have not investigated the matter as I don't want my position to be swayed. I will break down the sites on a number of factors that I have come to discover in my six months of using both services. |
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| Yahoo! goes on the principle of less is more, it seems. Profiles are about 2 pages long. Yahoo! keeps the criteria down to the essentials, so nothing really important is left out. The criteria choices are clear and precise. For example, I think Yahoo!'s "Marital" criterion works better than Match.com's "Relationship" criterion because its precision and clarity allows you to understand it better. There's only one text field to describe yourself in. With this bare minimum of information about a person available, it's hard to get a feel for who they really are. However, it's also harder to pinpoint drawbacks. Although, I do like the no-BS criteria of Yahoo! Personals, it ironically feels somewhat impersonal. | Match Criteria Winner: 
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Match.com has just about every criterion available that you could want to know before dating someone. There are 8 text fields to describe/specify about yourself as well. As such, a typical profile is about 3 or 4 pages long and it can sometimes be quite a chore reading through a profile. One criteria that I think is missing is a generalized question about a person's extroversion (Yahoo! calls this "Social Setting"); unless you can tell from reading a person's description or they've taken the personality test, their level of extroversion is often an uncertainty. I also have a qualm with two of the criteria: "Sense of Humor" and "Turn-Ons/Turn-Offs". The former bothers me because it has a little example beside each type that not only assumes people are retarded but makes it difficult to read in profiles. My problem with turn-ons and turn-offs is that you're only given predefined selections to answer as either a turn-on, turn-off, or neither; this would work better as a text answer--maybe to replace some of the useless ones like "last read" or "favorite hot-spots". In the end--with pet peevs aside--people like more content, plain and simple. Match.com has to win this one for that simple fact. |
| I like Yahoo's search interface. It makes changing criteria and updating results a lot more simple. Unlike Match.com, all the criteria are available here. You can also save and load searches while you're browsing matches instead of going to another page. The downside here is this is the only useful way to search. However, like Match.com, you can easily sort by a number of factors like activity time or age. | Searching Winner: 
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Although Match.com's search interface has issues, they do offer a number of different ways to search that Yahoo doesn't. You can search based on personality, physical attraction (assuming they take the tests), mutual matching, and reverse matching (you meet other people's match criteria). It's sometimes useful to see matches in a different order provided by these various search methods. Also, if you don't want to take the time to customize search criteria, you can just do a mutual matches search. However, I've found over time that I much prefer the simplicity of Yahoo!. Match.com has some benefits but their usefulness doesn't stack up. |
| Yahoo! can't compete with Match.com's number of users. However, Yahoo! makes up for this by winning in other categories. | Users Winner:
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Match.com simply has more users, any way you look at it. As I mentioned in the opening, the number of users over the hill (40 - 70yrs) is roughly 3 times the amount that Yahoo! has. More users means more potential matches, and that's always great to have. |
| Based on my personal interests and opinions, Yahoo! has matches of better quality. With Yahoo!, I've consistently gotten more dates and better matches from searching. I realize that results will definitely vary between individuals, though. As such, the type of person you are and the type of person you are seeking will affect which service you get more matches from. Early on, I noticed a difference between the majority of people on Match.com and Yahoo! Yahoo seems to attract more users that are laid-back, introverted, and computer-fluent. | Match Quality Winner:
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Continuing from Yahoo's discussion, Match.com appears to have more ambitious, extroverted, and carouse users. There is no shortage of people to go out and party with on the weekend at Match.com. If you aren't a dancer, Yahoo! might be better for you. |
| Yahoo! has what they call "Icebreakers". When you click the "Break the ice" link upon looking at a profile, it takes you to a page that gives a brief recap of the person on the left and a number of choice phrases to break the ice with in the center. A number of them are like silly pick-up lines. Although, others let you at least specify your intentions and what you liked. I really enjoy the selection, though. There's something for everyone. | Showing Interest Winner:
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With Match.com, you can send "Winks". Winks are so simple to send that you aren't even taken to another page for conformation. Therefore, I'd say they carry less emphasis than Yahoo!'s Icebreakers, as well as being less personalized. I've gotten many more Winks than Icebreakers, but that just makes Icebreakers that much more sweeter. |
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| Yahoo! has a good standard of uptime. I can't recall it ever going down. | Stability Winner:
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Match.com notoriously goes down at least partially too often. Many a time, I've had the search functions not work. Once I could not even sign in. |
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