A Single Girl's Guide to
Online Dating
Australia
| | A Single Girl's Guide to | |
 With all the online dating sites, it's hard to know where to turn. There are thousands of personals, dating and singles sites online. Hopefully, having learnt from experience, I can be your matchmaker and help you find your special someone.  
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  4.5/5 | ||||||||||||
 | "At SinglesWhoClick we believe the best things in life should be FREE! Our online dating service is dedicated to Australians and is 100% free. No risks with credit cards, no payments at all - this free service is paid for by advertising. Whether you are looking for love or just new friendships, click on to Singles Who Click and take control of your love life!" | |||||||||||
| Singles Who Click is a relative newcomer to the online dating market. However, this appears to be a blessing in disguise. They have learnt from other expensive Singles sites' mistakes, because it's 100% FREE. Meet guys online, for free? Yep, Singles Who Click pays for its service by sending you targeted ads. You will generally get between two and four promotional emails a week. However, you won't get more than one message a day - so your email won't get clogged. Also, you won't receive dodgy promotions, Singles Who Click only send you stuff you'll actually be interested in. Now down to how the nitty gritty of how well the site works. Being a newish dating site, their database isn't as large as some other personals services. Although, I received really great feedback from my profile. It seems that although there aren't many guys yet, they're extremely active - and by some of the photos, really cute too  This might be because they make it really easy to meet people, you only use points for initial contact - replying to an email is completely FREE. In comparison to other online dating sites, it is quite simple to use! Also, I absolutely love the design of this page, it's so clean and fresh. Best of all, the search page was really effective in finding guys I was actually interested in. Not only is it user friendly, but it's safe too. Singles Who Click has this "Double Blind" system that keeps your email address secret. So it's safe and easy for the single girl to chat, we don't have to worry about security or privacy - it's all taken care of. BTW: I had some trouble with my photo, it was way too large  , and their support guys really helped me out - I was shocked at how quickly they responded. | ||||||||||||
 | Conclusion: Singles Who Click is a really fresh dating community. The guys are really cute, and really responsive too. It's great to see a newcomer in the dating market, especially when they do it so well! Hopefully, they will only get better as their database continues to grow. 4.5/5 | |||||||||||
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 3.5/5 | ||||||||||||
 | "Australia's largest singles site where men and women find and form friendship, relationships and love. The opportunity to meet online and meeting at RSVP events across Australia" | |||||||||||
| According to RSVP, they have the largest database of singles in Australia. At last count they had over 385,000 members. They must be doing something right to be attracting so many people. Unfortunately, I think most people would agree that the layout isn't great. When I first visited RSVP the first thing that hit me was - yep you guessed it - it's very ... purple? The site works well, but it takes a while to adjust. The search feature is really quite effective at finding who you're looking for. They must know how to categorise people, because I often found really great guys in just a couple of clicks. However, although effective, one major drawback is the pricing structure. I was really surprised that they have such a huge database, because they are quite expensive. In order to send a message to somebody you need to buy a stamp. Stamps cost as much as $6.99 each. It only becomes somewhat affordable when you buy large packages of stamps. At almost $80, that's a lot of money for online dating! Stamp prices are:
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 | Conclusion: Design = ARGH!, Functionality = Really Good, Database = Huge! I'm trying not to judge a book by its cover - but it is hard. RSVP would get almost full marks if not for the design factor. Even though functionality is key, I prefer a personals page that looks good too. 3.5/5 | |||||||||||
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| 3/5 | ||||||||||||
 | "Find what you're looking for in dating, relationships or intimate encounters. Chat with singles in a fun and safe environment. Search online for that special someone. Re-invent your personal life. Like, lust or love. Meet singles looking for love! Find it at Lavalife. Personals, where singles click." | |||||||||||
Lava life is one of those dating sites that has a page for almost every country imaginable, so you can find those really exotic guys Tall, Dark and Handsome too . However, there are a couple of drawbacks with this. The search feature doesn't remember that you're from Australia. Which means you constantly find great people, then discover that they don't live in Australia at all. That was the main thing that really annoyed me.  . Although, on the plus side, lava life has a good database, as they have been around for a while. Unfortunatley, it takes a lot more effort to find exactly who you are looking for. The overall site design and interface is okay. The first few pages are really cute, but the search feature is only average and difficult to find your way around. Lava life, like a lot of dating sites, let you join and create a profile for free. This is great, but as soon as you want to start contacting anybody - you have to pay. The costs start adding up pretty quickly. Below is the pricing structure for lava life in $US. 24.99 (US $) = 100 credits 39.99 (US $) = 200 credits Email messages are 6 credit points each. They also have a great instant messaging feature, but it's expensive. Personally, I would be just as happy to use MSN or ICQ to chat with someone for free. Lavalife has this cool feature that shows how many people are online at any given time. However, this is a bit deceiving, because often the total includes people from all over the world, not just Australia. | ||||||||||||
 | Conclusion: Overall, not bad. Loved some of the extra features, such as web cams and chat. Unfortunately, it is expensive and not the easiest site to use. It would also be better if the search engine was limited to only Australia, rather than world wide. 3/5 | |||||||||||
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| 1.5/5 | ||||||||||||
 | "Find what you're looking for in dating, relationships or intimate encounters. Chat with singles in a fun and safe environment. Search online for that special someone. Re-invent your personal life. Like, lust or love. Meet singles looking for love! Find it at Lavalife. Personals, where singles click." | |||||||||||
| I didn't like this one at all. Some friends referred me to Yahoo, but I found it didn't work all that well for me. The main problem with yahoo is they charge a lot, but offer very little. They let you chat as much as you want for a monthly fee. Sounds like a really great idea, but at $25 a month it gets expensive. Yahoo automatically charges your credit card every month. 1 month for $25.00 3 months for $52.50 6 months for $82.50 With internet dating, I much prefer to pay as I go. This way, I know I'm getting exactly what I pay for. Sometimes, you just don't get a chance to use the site. But, no matter what, with yahoo you're always paying. Yahoo is also really low on extra features. Unlike Lava life, they offer nothing except for email chat. It's just a bit too pricey for the service they offer. | ||||||||||||
 | Conclusion: Yahoo Personals is a bit expensive for the service that they offer. The search feature works well, and they seem to have some decent members, but the design is simplistic and overall low on features. By far and away, my least favourite internet dating site. 1.5/5 | |||||||||||
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| 3/5 | ||||||||||||
 | "AdultMatchMaker is the quick, easy, fun and safe way to meet partners online. Join Now to start browsing through the hundreds of thousands of profiles on the site!" | |||||||||||
| Adult matchmaker is a site aimed at singles who enjoy the slightly kinkier side of things! They seem to really know their market. They cater for almost anything you could think of - you've got a fetish, they handle it. They cater to groups and couples as well as singles. Although, you get almost no access unless you sign up. I really wanted to take a good look around before I go through a lengthy registration process. Adult Match Maker works on the same type of payment plan as yahoo. However, they're cheaper and have a better categorisation and more features. Becoming a member with adult match maker is free. This allows you to: - Post your profile on the site. - Reply to messages you receive. - Send 4 Winks a day to users you like. - View 50 profiles a day. Upgrading your membership starts from $69.95 for 3 months access. Upgrading lets you do these additional things: - Send messages to users on the site. - Gives you priority listing in searches. - Initiate Private Chats with online users (Premium Membership). - View unlimited profiles. | ||||||||||||
 | Conclusion: One of the few sites that caters for the more adult side of things, without being offensive. They are expensive, but if you enjoy the somewhat kinky - give 'em a go. 3/5 | |||||||||||
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 Australian Dating Sites |  events4singles |  | ||||||||||