Author: Deano

There are several paths:

1. Paid Advertising. This is thought of as a requirement in the industry currently, as the usual word of mouth and viral spread techniques that might otherwise boost awareness/traffic/signups run up against issues of privacy and fear of disclosing the use of an online dating site to a wider circle of friends. People may feel less reluctant to admit the use of dating sites these days, but it's still not something they heavily promote/advocate on their own. Another form of advertising, the affiliate sale model, pays third parties to convince prospects to sign up for a site.
2. SEO. By identifying revenue-generating niches, and performing keyword optimization techniques on one's site, it is possible to rank highly in medium to low-competition niches, and thus increase traffic flow for people searching within a particular niche.
3. PR/Media relations. If a company can convey a newsworthy story, to the right outlet, when they aren't busy covering other breaking news, it's possible to receive online press coverage fairly easily. Once more established on blogs/news sites, these press hits can show social proof to get access to print and cable news channels. Performed wisely, with recurring news every quarter or two, a site can build traffic via appearances in the news.
4. Fake user databases. This is a more popular tactic than you would think, or like. Sites can purchase lists of "members", along with pictures and profile text, for a very small investment, then "seed" their membership in a way that makes it appear that they have a strong user pool in any major (or even small) city. This gives any real users a greater incentive to join up. As this effect snowballs, the site can slowly delete/remove the fake users, as enough users come online in a given area to achieve "real critical mass".
5. Shared user databases. This innovation allows you to license another site's user database for your own site. The users themselves are instantly "members" of the new site, which gives them even more ways to be found/matched/selected by compatible people. In theory, this means getting to critical mass immediately, in exchange for a licensing fee. Since this is similar to a lot of software/content licensing agreements, it appears attractive. Unfortunately, there is a large amount of overlap between #4 and #5 – so you may wind up sharing a database that is largely fake accounts. As Yosemite Sam might say "Two Nothin's is Nothin!" It's also possible to license accounts that are 100% real, verifiable, and simply inactive. Three Nothin's?
6. Innovation. This one is really really hard to get right, and sustain over the long haul. It may take much longer to grow to a decent size, but services like OKCupid initially pursued this route – since the site was so different from the big online matchmaking catalog sites, it became a word of mouth alternative. Eventually, though, OKC also invested in regular large marketing spend to attract new users, as their "known brand" elements had become so established and familiar, that making significant/drastic changes had a greater chance of upsetting existing users than attracting new ones.

Basically, there is almost no difference in HOW free sites attract new users. The main difference is the subscription price (free), and the perceived value proposition associated with it. This also means that there is some form of market targeting/segmentation going on between free and paid sites: free sites cater to everyone in theory, whereas people of certain income levels/philosophies are essentially blocked or self-selected out of paid sites.

Perhaps the extent of issues/complaints involving paid sites acts as an additional incentive: it's very hard to prove the old saw "you get what you pay for" when it comes to online dating… Mostly because people confuse what most dating sites are offering: access to their database, and nothing more. Free sites, then, only have to provide the smallest perceived value to become "value positive" in the mind of the member – something as small as a single email reply in a month. The same situation on match.com or eharmony.com would be seen pretty universally as a waste of the membership fee.

How have free dating sites gotten to a critical mass of users?

Absolutely not.

If you include ONLY physical characteristics as a measure, and create some form of consistent baseline for attractiveness, then I'd be surprised if there was any significant impact on online dating site use on attractiveness. 

The same kind of financial circumstances that prevent a lot of people from getting online at all (and thus using an online dating site) are the same circumstances that reduce preventive healthcare, wardrobe budget, and other personal care that typically enhances looks (spa treatments, hairstyling, teeth whitening and hair removal).

That said, what people think of as attractive in a potential mate usually embodies more than the physical – a sunny or even devilish personality, confidence and poise, extroversion and a welcoming/inviting nature. 

Not everyone can easily pull this type of attraction off in person, and online it can be even more difficult to fully convey these qualities even if they exist in abundance "offline".

I think the fairest thing to say is that it's very difficult to "be your most attractive" online – though breaking the ice and reducing tensions/expectations via an online dating service CAN increase attraction/comfort during subsequent in-person meetings.

Are people using online dating sites less attractive than average?

No, such sites do not currently exist (or are still in "stealth mode").

That said, the idea of transmitting smells via the Internet is nothing new – in fact, DigiScents was a startup created 10 years ago to develop the "iSmell", a hardware device that could reproduce smells based on a data file transmitted via email, or embedded in a website.

It's entirely possible that one could license the iSmell IP, and embed similar data into dating profiles. Of course, the original iSmell was an output-only device – which means a second device (iSniff?) would be required to identify and codify the unique smell(s) of each site member.

Read more on this rather unusual startup, as well as a few other historical attempts at transmitting smells electronically here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISmell

Are there examples of online dating sites where you can use your sense of smell (or body chemistry) to attract a date before meeting the person in real life?

Whether it's movies, gambling, oil, health supplements, or online dating, the way to judge maturity is the same – when the Feds decide to regulate it in some fashion. 

While the shady players or bad business practices may never go away, at some point Uncle Sam decides that Halliburton needs to at least pretend to care about the safety of its pipelines, or that compulsive gamblers probably shouldn't be kneecapped behind the Stardust when they lose big. 

Put another way, once you get big enough, taking obvious legal risks for financial gain makes less business sense than providing smooth reliable quarterly results for your investors. 

Other than general Internet and ecommerce rulings, we haven't really seen the federal government go after online dating claims/methodologies/terms of service specifically. There has been a fair bit of private litigation against individual sites for discrimination against gays/lesbians, and there is a general lack of "accessibility" for transgender users outside the adult personals… but for now, dating remains basically on an even regulatory playing field with any other type of online business. 

Which, to me, says that it has room left to grow.

Is the online dating business past its prime?

There is no simple way to search for the same (real) user across multiple dating sites.

The idea that you would want to do this to verify consistency in the user's self-description seems to be working too hard to get an answer that doesn't help you out very much. The basic outcomes of such a search would be the following:

1) User is consistent across profiles, all of which can be found – but may still be lying about their height, marital status, etc. Consistently dishonest is still consistent.

2) User is consistent across findable profiles, but actually has several variant profiles that remain undetected (for example, profiles that change the user's gender, and/or use a significant quantity of falsified data)

3) User is inconsistent across profiles, but for "innocent" reasons – no longer active on a certain site, and profile information has changed since they last logged in (used to be married, now divorced; used to be 100K+ salary, now unemployed). The user themselves may not be aware that their profiles are not up to date – given the time required to craft a profile when joining a site, many users do not regularly update their own profile unless they experience a dramatic change in messages/replies to their messages.

4) User is intentionally inconsistent across profiles, for "targeting" reasons. Many people do not like to read or respond to profiles that are too general, or too accepting of other types of users (the woman willing to date men 18-80, the man willing to date women any distance away). By creating different profiles to target different groups they might be interested in, the user may experience improved results, and meet more compatible people… For example, a bisexual person who lists twice as gay and straight – and would be happy and monogamous in either type of relationship.

The question also implies that once your friend "likes" a profile on a dating site, they start placing expectations/hopes on that person being "the one" before meeting. This is not only dangerous, but highly unlikely to work out statistically. By placing too much energy in a single pairing, your friend risks being disappointed and having to start over – and perhaps eventually burning out on online dating entirely.

The alternative, and the path I would strongly advise, is instead to simply conduct an ongoing search, and not place all your eggs in a single basket. By either actively dating multiple people at once, or at least continuing to make contact with new potentials, your friend can better reduce the risks/pain of meeting a poor match, or having a good online connection simply sputter out after meeting.

Is there a search engine or program available to check multiple dating sites for the same user?