Yahoo Personals Review

Yahoo Personals is an established online dating site which has been around since the 1990s. It has well over 10 million users, and it has a number of key benefits that make it attractive to both new and veteran cyber daters.

Pros

This dating site covers three regions of the world, which are the Amercas, Europe, and Asia. One thing that I like about Yahoo Personals is that setting up a profile on the site is relatively easy. You don't have to worry about jumping through the loopholes which you're forced to deal with on other dating sites, and I personally think that this is a major advantage.

This site allows you to upload as many as 5 photos under your profile, and it also offers you a free personality test. Despite this, one of the best features found with this site is its search engine. This shouldn't come as a big surprise since the core business of Yahoo is its search engine, as opposed to online dating. In any event, the search engine for this site is very comprehensive, and you can select as little or as much criteria as you wish. In addition to keyword searches, it also gives you the option of searching by zip codes. This site also gives you the ability to save your searches, so you don't have to keep performing them each time you visit. Like many other dating websites, Yahoo Personals also offers a free membership, but as you would expect, you're limited in the number of features you have.

For example, signing up with a free membership will allow you to send prewritten messages to people you're interested in, but to get free flowing communication, you must get a paid membership. The primary advantage which separates Yahoo Personals from other sites is the huge volume of traffic that you get once your profile is uploaded. If you choose to purchase the more expensive membership, you will be provided with many advanced matchmaking features. Another key advantage that Yahoo Personals has is popularity. The truth of the matter is that the site is widely popular on the Internet, and is one of the most widely visited dating sites on the web today.

Another thing that I should point out is that Yahoo Personals is a good site for those who are looking for casual or even serious relationships. This site is known for its flexibility, and it also has a large database. Due to the privacy issues which have been raised on the web today, Yahoo Personals has taken the time to deal with this issue by offering a number of privacy options to its members, and there are a number of ways in which you can flirt with other members without being totally daunted. This site also gives you the option of exchanging either video and chat greetings. Overall, Yahoo Personals is an established site that offers many useful options to its users.

Cons

For all the popularity that it has gained over the years, Yahoo Personals has a number of controversies which has tarnished its image. First off, this site is devoid of many of the advanced features which are found on other online dating sites, even though its monthly membership fees are roughly the same or higher. One such thing that Yahoo Personals lacks is a chat room, and this site also doesn't have any message boards. When you add to this the fact that the site has raised its monthly membership fees in recent years, it has become easy to see why many have discontinued using the site. At $39.95 per month for a Personal Premier account, Yahoo Personals is somewhat expensive considering the many features it lacks.

Yahoo Personals was also subjected to a class action lawsuit by a man named Robert Anthony, who is said to have believed that he was dating an "authentic" individual only to find that he was dating a test profile. The fact that Yahoo chose to settle out of the court with him shows that it is likely that they were guilty of what he accused them of. The settlement also forced Yahoo Personals to make many changes to its database, which included getting rid of fake profiles. This information is highly disturbing, because if Yahoo is actively involved in adding fake profiles to its own website, then this means that the company has essentially been involved in fraudulent activities.

For me, a company who adds fake profiles to its dating site is a big no-no, and should be a red flag to anyone who is thinking of joining, particularly as a paid member. In addition to this, Yahoo Personals doesn't offer anything which makes it revolutionary in comparison to other online dating sites. In fact, some would point out that the only reason why Yahoo Personals has become such a huge website is because it is a spin off of Yahoo, a company which initially became successful due to its search engine. For Yahoo, entering the online dating market is like Donald Trump offering his "Trump Ice" or "Trump University" brands: while his core business is real estate, he has choose to extend his brand name into other areas which are unrelated, and it is questionable whether or not he would have been successful without having his core business as a back up.

Because Yahoo has billions under its belt earned from its search engine, which is its core business, some would say that it simply introduced Yahoo Personals as a way to enter the online dating market, and by throwing millions of dollars into advertising and development, they allowed the site to become the huge behemoth that it is today.In other words, the success that Yahoo Personal has comes more from marketing dollars than it does from actual innovation. When one carefully evaluates Yahoo Personals and compares it to the other online dating sites on the web today, there is little it has to stand out from the crowd. This personally leads me to believe that the only thing holding the service afloat is the huge amount of dollars and marketing power that Yahoo has, and little else.