What are the best dating sites?
It depends...

So, you've decided to try online dating and would like to know what are the best dating sites, before you start spending your money.

Here I won't give you a list of dating sites, there are so many online dating sites that you wouldn't know where to start from, but a way to find the ones that are really the best for you. In my opinion, the best sites are the ones that match your needs, therefore, first decide what you are looking for.

If you are new to this, here's a brief summary. There are two big categories:

• free online dating sites
• subscription based dating sites

There is another category that's smaller but I prefer it, it's a mix of

• free online dating site with optional extra features you pay for.
  

In other pages I talk more in detail about Internet dating sites in general and about subscription based dating sites, while I've made another page about free online dating sites. Read more there for more information and dating tips.

Free and paid dating websites characteristics

Both free and paid/subscription based websites can be

• generic dating websites
  and I find that they are just... too general. There are too many people with poorly written profiles and I spent a huge amount of time just going through many of them containing only a few words

or

• targeted or niche dating sites
  here you can find people who share your interests.

Targeted or niche dating sites are in most cases subscription based.

Totally free dating sites are almost always generic dating websites, however there are some free targeted or niche dating sites. Here's a very interesting example, a whole network of niche dating sites based on interests or passions as they say: www.passionsnetwork.com. There you can register once and then join several sections according to your interests.

My ideal, best dating websites

So, in my opinion, the best dating sites are:

• niche dating websites targeting specific interests
  
• those that give you some free way of communicating with other members, with extra features that you pay for, if you want them
• those that combine the two features above are the ideal.

The reasons for this are:

• in websites targeting people with specific interests you find people who share your interests, obviously, and it'll be easier to start a conversation about something you have in common and maybe do some activities together.
• you don't have to pay to send messages to someone without knowing whether they will ever read them because they are not paying members.

What do you think?