Free Online dating sites are seriously pushing their commercial rivals for competition.  With the change in the financial climate people have less money to spend on Internet past times such as dating and finding friendships and therefore turn to free dating sites.

It is true that the paid online dating community is shrinking.

Many of the free dating sites offer a service that is as good as, if not better than, the commercial sites and they are mainly funded by advertising.

The free dating site niche isn’t a closed market, and it’s all about manipulating the search engines in order to get noticed.  It’s a case of the site making the most noise that pulls in the audience.

In the last six months paid dating sites subscriptions have falled 25%.  That’s a big drop from a big market.   However, according to Hitwise the top 5 subscription based dating sites are getting bigger, whilst their smaller counterparts are shrinking. This is a common trend in any niche market on the Internet and online dating doesn’t appear to be any different.

The recessiongoar hasn’t helped the paid dating marketing in any way.  Disposable income for non-essential items hit an all time low, with many people losing their jobs, where as the free dating sites benefitted from the increased subscriptions.  This then put them in a more powerful position with regards to charging for advertising on their sites, which pulled in more revenue for them.

So what does the future hold for free dating sites?  Their position in the market is stronger than ever and at the moment you can only see them building on that.  The danger is that the market will become flooded, as and as per the commercial sites it will probably be true that only the top 5 or so sites will succeed and survive.

The next step in online dating could be to fill the void left when people do actually meet up.  Online dating sites cater for the instigating the meet, but human nature requires physical interaction and that is where the boundary of the dating site ends.