Online dating is very profitable business for site owners and that's why every dating site trying to catch your attention by using numbers, advertising tricks and press-releases. Some dating sites offers millions profiles to search for, some offers some offers specialized dating like dating for pet owners or military dating. Every site trying to show how many members do they have and it should increase your success. But is there any connection between size database, its quality and your success? Have you ever thinked of this?

Team of researchers has shown in a recent study, this abundance of options may not make the chooser feel or choose any better than a pool of just a half dozen or so options. As the researchers explain, people tend to anticipate that they’ll feel better about “shopping for a mate” when there is a large number of options. However, in actuality, people feel equally good when faced with fewer options to choose. The scientists performed two experiments demonstrating this clash between anticipation and experience.

In their first experiment, the researchers asked 88 participants (with an average age of 22) what they thought was the ideal number of potential mates to choose from, with a range between 1 and 5,000 options. Participants judged each set (very small to very large) of potential mates on four criteria: expected difficulty of making a selection, anticipated satisfaction with their decision, anticipated regret after making their decision, and expected enjoyment of the selection process.

On average, participants predicted that they would be overall most satisfied when selecting from about 20-50 possible mates. So, in the second experiment, the researchers investigated how satisfied people were when choosing a mate from this range compared with the less favored fewer options. Interestingly, they found that participants who chose from 20 personal profiles had roughly similar experiences compared with participants who had to pick from just four profiles. Also, participants’ actual experiences when faced with four options were significantly better than anticipated.

As the researchers summarized, “the expected preference for the larger set-size in terms of more enjoyment and satisfaction and less regret did not materialize.” Instead, there is a significant mismatch between what people think they will feel and what they actually feel, the team concluded.

Database Quality Evaluation

Before joning dating sites you should understand that database size is not always best indicator about your chances. In example let's take largest dating site Match.com. On their site they state that Match.com have more than 20 millions singles. But let's try to evaluate the useful part of this database.

Step 1. At least 50% of total members have the same sex as you so you would not dating them. So only 10 millions Match.com profiles left after step 1.
Step 2. If you live in United States you are more likely to find a date in your country. According to Alexa rating Match.com have only 55% visitors from United States of America.. So you will have only 5.5 millions singles to date on Match.com after Step 2.
Step 3. If you are not willing to relocate from your city it's more likely that you will have more success if you will date singles from your area. Sure a lot will depend on state population but I suppose will be happy to choose from 300.000 profiles. In most cases this number should be lower.
Step 4. After you will aply age, interests to the number you got after step 3 I think that in best case you will have around 500-1000 of singles to choose from.

So only 500-1000 members from 20 millions represented on Match.com will be an active part for you from whole membership database. The same members amount could be found on many local dating sites so we can say that match.com database quality potentialy is the same as on local dating sites.

Bottom Line

To choose best dating site which will work for you pay attention to many factors. Don't jump on those millions, spend time on doing basic research. Try to investigate is dating site is oriented into you region, search for singles in your area before purchasing service membership. Try to evaluate possible success rate before you pay for the services because after payment processing you take all risks on your behalf. Don't forget that people's nature dictates them to join larger communites but in reality it is not necessary because you will spend your life in surrounding of 50-100 people.