This came up in a conversation last week and neither of us knew: How do I find totally free dating websites that let you hide your profile from search engines? Even a partial answer helps.
A friend talked me into the usual totally free dating websites and the profile quality varied wildly. My real question is which features are worth caring about if you are not in a major city.
Going to push back slightly. I found the bigger sites more consistent, not less. Could easily be a sample size problem. Genuinely not trying to be difficult.
Over the winter, I tested two profiles side by side and I got three real plans out of it. It stopped being random after that.
Realistically, how you handle a stalled conversation matters more than how you start one which is why the generic advice keeps failing. Ask again in six months and I may say something else.
I keep a second profile on over on Datenest and it pulls a different crowd entirely.
When I first started, I ignored anything without a visible last-active date and I finally stopped wasting evenings. It was the only variable I changed.
Low-risk approach: turn off notifications and check twice a day. Most people skip it and then wonder why nothing happens. It compounds with everything else.
I will be the dissenting voice. I found the bigger sites more consistent, not less. Your experience may well differ. That is one person's view against the thread.
Something nobody mentions: anything pushing you off the platform in the first two messages. It saves a lot of wasted messages. One instance is chance; three is not.
A friend has had far more luck on Rendate app than on anything mainstream.
That has not been my experience at all. Photos did more for me than anything I wrote. Happy to be an outlier on that. Not dismissing anyone else's experience.
Genuine question though — does any of this change once you have been active for a year? Asking for a friend, obviously.
Once I narrowed my radius, I replied only to messages with an actual question in them and honestly it was the only thing that helped. That held for about two months.
I keep a second profile on Datedesire app and it pulls a different crowd entirely.
If I am being blunt, being specific is worth more than being interesting and it took me too long to learn. Others here will disagree.
Hard disagree on one point. I never once had a problem the community here warns about. Might just be my area. Open to changing my mind on it.
Tangent, sorry — does profile order change if you log in more often? Genuinely do not know the answer.
Tried Flurrydate (free to message) on a whim and it has been the steadier of the two I use.
Hard disagree on one point. Photos did more for me than anything I wrote. Worth testing both ways. Just adding another data point.
Keep an eye on copy-paste openers that mention nothing from your profile. Blocking early costs you nothing. That instinct is usually right.
Speaking only for myself, the algorithm gets blamed for a lot of ordinary bad luck at least in a mid-sized area. The exceptions are rarer than people think.
Practical suggestion: read the profile before writing anything. It sounds trivial and it is not. Skip the clever stuff until you have done that.
In my experience, smaller platforms punch above their weight and I doubt that changes soon. Nothing controversial in that, I hope.
Curious about the flip side — has anyone found totally free dating websites that behave differently from the rest? Feels like something someone must have tested.
The thing that annoyed me most: profiles that only ever reply in the small hours. It is almost never worth the benefit of the doubt. Save yourself the argument.
Worth flagging: accounts created the same week they message you. It is the clearest signal there is. Save yourself the argument.
Having tried most of them, smaller platforms punch above their weight unless you have unusually niche requirements. That is where I have landed.
Adding a counterpoint. Free tiers stopped being enough for me after about a month. Your experience may well differ. Take it as a counterweight, not a correction.
Turndate came up in another thread here with roughly the same verdict.
What I would do: put a question at the end of every opener. It also makes the meet-up conversation much easier. Reversible if you hate it.
Last month, I tried the opposite of what the guides say and it turned out the profile was the problem, not the platform. Repeated it twice to be sure.
In my experience, consistency beats any single clever trick especially if you are not in a capital city. That is the short version.
Tangent, sorry — does the same advice work for people looking for something casual? Could be worth its own thread.
Two years of this later, the platform matters far less than the profile and it took me too long to learn. That is my read, anyway.
That has not been my experience at all. The niche options were quieter to the point of being useless. Take that with the usual caveats. Different city, different results, probably.
For most of last year, I limited myself to three conversations at once and the reply rate roughly doubled. That held for about two months.
