Dating Services Most Favored By Google (Or Best Marketed?)
I would like to carry out another test with selected dating sites – my plan is to check how many pages indexed by Google and how many incoming links Google displays for each particular site.
This info is to show how good those dating services are at online marketing and search engine optimization.
As a result, we will see Google most saturated dating sites. It is another metric to evaluate general performance of online dating services. Websites with 100 000 indexed pages are likely to do better than those with 1000. Google will not crawl insignificant (from his bot’s point of view) sites that deep and much.
When it comes to incoming links I should mention that Google does not display all links with his command link:www.site.com So, the stats do not reflects all dating service incoming links, but part of them.
I will do this test with general dating services that as we know from our previous researches are much more trafficked than specialty services.
|
Dating Site |
Indexed Pages |
Inbound Links |
|
316 000 |
2 920 |
|
|
87 |
9 |
|
|
158 000 |
507 |
|
|
14 700 |
712 |
|
|
304 |
172 |
|
|
73 500 |
3 |
|
|
355 |
27 |
|
|
5 870 000 |
128 |
|
|
519 |
523 |
|
|
241 000 |
43 |
|
|
1 300 000 |
484 |
|
|
56 000 |
1070 |
It is not the first time we see that search engines data is not as reliable as we would like it to be. One test shows us that certain dating services are on top, another test conducted in the same search engine proves that completely different services should be doing great with search engines. Though with our today’s test it is quite possible that numerous pages are protected from bot crawling for privacy issues.
What data are reliable? I think the data that the dating services get using their in-house web analytics systems. The data that no outsider can get access to…
Quick Dating Links for July 21-25, 2008
- A DNA based dating site announcement made: We Have Our First DNA-Based Dating Service: GenePartner
Do you find any difference with this service Or is it the same one?
- CNN publishes a study details (that are two years old) where they state that many black women are single compared to white; and the conclusion is:
Forty-five percent of black women in America have never been married, compared with 23 percent of white women, according to the U.S. Census Bureau’s American Community Survey in 2006. Articles like the one published in the Washington Post two years ago could lead me to believe that it’s because “Marriage is for White People.”
- Yahoo! Personals never stops sharing dating tips. This time – dating older woman tips.
That’s it - enjoy the weekend!
Dating Services That Bloggers Like
We have discussed some cool metric that allows us to see what dating service is hot right now online (or they are aggressively promoting their services to be hot). Another tool similar to the one used in that post is Google Blogsearch (similar service is available from Technorati).
It is based on the same principle and provides us with the stats of brand mentions by bloggers.
I was eager to test this tool as my previous research was not a success (remember – when 3 month mentions were greater than 6 month mentions?).
So, I did not change the selection of tested dating services (I had to drop GreatExpectations due to a large amount of irrelevant results – probably this fact skewed my previous test?). Let’s get down to the results that we have received this time:
|
Dating Service |
Past Week |
Past Month |
|
220 |
1 750 |
|
|
35 |
169 |
|
|
1 064 |
3 199 |
|
|
3 |
59 |
|
|
105 |
222 |
|
|
9 |
56 |
|
|
7 |
106 |
No surprises here (and no glitches this time). eHarmony is on top and undisputable leader of the selected list.
As I have already mentioned this research allows you not just find out most buzz generating (= popular?) dating services of the present time, but also see if the services gain increased or decreased buzz online over time. For example, take MillionaireMate – it looks like the guys enjoy summer like most their male (and female I guess) user base – 7 week mentions vs. 26 average mentions done in the last month.
What to do with all the info you get as a result of these tests? Well, it is up to you and your imagination:
- choose and join most popular dating services
- see what services are on the rise & become their competition
- get the feeling of dating industry trends to get the next wave (if it will ever come)
- do something else or nothing
While making this research I was impressed with the number of reviews made monthly for each service (reviews similar to those that you find on this website). For example, SinglesNet service was reviewed at least by 10 blogs in July!