Match.com Review
Match.com is one of the oldest and most popular dating sites today, boasting a large and diverse membership that makes it ideal for over 50s. A host of great features, including an industry-leading matching algorithm, are included with a Match.com membership and it's widely considered one of the best dating sites for over 50 around.
Overview
Founded in 1995, Match.com has impressive staying power in the online dating game, being one of the oldest and most successful dating sites ever. With over 20 years' experience matching people together and a large userbase, Match.com remains on the best dating sites around, especially for people 50 and over.
While most of the features require a paid membership, Match.com lets you create and browse profiles free of charge, although you do get a lot more from the website when paying for a membership.
Registration
Signing up for Match.com is straight-forward but will require some time, taking about 15-20 minutes to register and create a profile. You'll be asked some typical dating site questions like your gender and the gender you're interested in, along with your location and how close you want your matches to be from this.
After this you complete a questionnaire to help determine suitable matches for you. Questions include preferred eye color, height, education, ethnicity, religion, and language. You can set many of these as deal breakers, meaning you won't get matched with people that don't match your preferences.
Similarly, you can set preferences for things like their relationship status, if they have children, drinking and smoking habits. These are quite useful when it comes to finding people over 50 that in a similar position to yours, whether it's divorced, separated, have adult children etc.
Pricing
You can sign up for Match.com for free although this only provides access to limited features, namely creating a profile, viewing profiles, and liking photos. If you want to send and receive messages, see who views your profile, email and voice chat, and track what profiles and users you're chatting with, a paid membership is needed.
Like with most dating sites, Match.com offers discounts when you sign up for a longer membership. Pricing options at Match.com include:
- 3 Month - $23.99/Month
- 6 Month - $19.99/Month
- 12 Month - $17.99/Month
Features
Matches
This is the core feature of Match.com, found under the Matches tab on the homepage. This is where members are matched with profiles using an advanced algorithm that considers all the questions you've answered when making a profile along with your on-going site habits.
For example, if you set your preferences to brunettes with brown eyes but continue to view profiles of people that are blonde with blue eyes, then the matching algorithm accommodates this by adding some newer suggestions in the Match section.
Daily matches refresh every 24 hours and provides hand-picked match suggestions, after which you can say whether you're interested or not.
Connections
Another main feature of Match.com is the connections page, which lets you view your previous interactions with other members. It's a great way of keeping track of everything you've done on the site, including likes, winks, views, favorites etc.
Think of this as your black book. You'll keep all info about other users you communicate with and can store any phone contacts and voice messages you receive.
Discover
Match.com doesn't just provide suggestions for matches but also lets you view other profiles with an extensive search system.
There are countless filters you can apply, making it easy to find the right type of people according to your preferences. This is very useful for finding people aged 50 and above, saving you the hassle of navigating through countless profiles of younger members.
It's a comprehensive search system that lets you find exactly what you're looking for. This includes basic searches like age, gender, and location, to more precise filters such as interests and lifestyles. You can also filter all searches by newest, who's online, and who is most active.
Match Picks is a feature in the search system that is basically a recommendation based on the website's matching algorithm, highlighting profiles that you may find appealing and your possible compatibility.
Conclusion
Match.com is one of the most successful dating sites for simple reason - it's very effective! The site has a fantastic matching algorithm that helps filter out countless profiles to ensure you're matched with people that meet your personal preferences.
A user-friendly interface makes it easy to navigate the many profiles you're matched with and keeps track of all your activities for easier management of your profile and interactions. You have access to common features that are easy to use, so it's suitable for people with very little online dating experience.
There are lots of users that are 50 and over while the matching and searching systems let you get very precise, letting you find exactly what you want, whether that's something casual or serious. Because you need to pay for most features, there are few fake profiles and most people using the site are serious about online dating.