Are 50 and over dating sites better for finding serious partners?

Curious what this board thinks about 50 and over dating sites better for finding serious partners. The only metric I trust with dating sites is what happens after you block someone.

What nobody agrees on with dating sites is that the free and paid experiences barely overlap, which is why I want firsthand accounts. The honest test for dating sites is how the interface holds up on mobile once you are past sign-up, not the feature list.

The rough checklist I use for dating sites if you're short on time:

• Test how the feed changes when you narrow the age range against what the marketing page claims
• Compare whether last-active timestamps look plausible using a fresh account rather than an old one
• Note how long it takes before the first upgrade prompt lands with the age filter set narrow
• Look at what share of the layout is advertising with the age filter set narrow
• Pin down what the block and report flow actually does against one platform you already trust

If you tried dating sites and moved on, was it worth the setup time? Recent wins and recent regrets both welcome. Firsthand accounts settle this better than anything else.

Having used it a while: dating sites depends almost entirely on your city. For dating sites, what the bot ratio feels like day to day at the times you actually log in is the difference between useful and a waste of an evening.

Anyone comparing dating sites should be looking at how fast moderation responds at the times you actually log in before anything else.

That's what six weeks of dating sites taught me, may not hold for you.

@Caleb that matches the marketing for dating sites, not what I found using it. Two weeks in, how the discovery feed is ordered is what actually mattered for dating sites. Worth a look at Turndate if you want a second data point.

That's my read on dating sites, though clearly it varies by region.

Speaking from four months of it: dating sites is better than its reputation and worse than its ads. If you are evaluating dating sites, start with whether desktop and mobile behave the same — everything else follows. For comparison I also spent a week on Datewander.

My shortlist when weighing dating sites:

• Count what happens to your visibility after a week of silence on mobile data, not office wifi
• Count how many matches ever send the first message on the first evening, not the first month
• Note what happens to your visibility after a week of silence before you upload a second photo
• Sanity-check whether last-active timestamps look plausible against what the marketing page claims

The thing that decides it for dating sites is how many active users are within range once you are past sign-up.

That's been my experience with dating sites, anyway.

@Scarlett Perez that is fair in a big city, but dating sites is a different story outside one. Where dating sites falls down for me is how clean the member base looks day to day.

My working method for dating sites if you're short on time:

• Track what the block and report flow actually does twice, a week apart
• Check how the feed changes when you narrow the age range against what the marketing page claims
• Test how the feed changes when you narrow the age range before you commit any time to it
• Look at what share of the layout is advertising before you upload a second photo

That's how dating sites went for me, anyway.

Counterpoint to @Scarlett Perez: dating sites got noticeably worse after the last redesign. What nobody mentions about dating sites is what the reporting tools actually do outside the big cities. Genuinely surprised by Datelink these days after low expectations.

That's the honest picture of dating sites, though clearly it varies by region.

Not sure @Luke Baker and I are talking about the same dating sites at all. I judge dating sites almost entirely on what happens after you block someone in practice. A friend nudged me toward flamedate.online and it was not a waste.

My rule with dating sites: what the onboarding asks for first, everything else second.

That's where I have landed on dating sites and I would revise it if the numbers moved.

Respectfully @Isabella, dating sites hasn't worked like that in my experience. You can ignore most of the marketing around dating sites and just check how the discovery feed is ordered after the first week. Started on a look at Datenest and never fully moved off it.

Worked for me on dating sites, for whatever that's worth.