Which dating sites for 50 year olds are the most popular?

Curious what this board thinks about dating sites for 50 year olds are the most popular. If you're evaluating dating sites, start with how active it is outside big cities — everything else follows.

The part that trips me up on dating sites is that every source has something to sell, so I would rather ask people than read another list. My rule with dating sites: what the search filters can actually do outside the big cities first, everything else second.

My working method for dating sites before committing:

• Track how quickly a scripted account gives itself away with notifications switched off
• Pin down whether the distance setting is honoured twice, a week apart
• Look at whether last-active timestamps look plausible using a fresh account rather than an old one

Anyone with recent time on dating sites, how long before you knew? The good, the bad and the boring all worth hearing. Concrete examples would genuinely change my mind.

Going to push back on @WillC here. Dating sites behaved very differently for me. Anyone comparing dating sites should be looking at how thin it gets in smaller towns outside the big cities before anything else. Compared it against datebie.online for about a week.

For dating sites, how quickly the fake accounts surface after the first week is the difference between useful and a waste of an evening.

That's been my experience with dating sites, may not hold for you.

Sorry @WillC, I have spent longer on dating sites than that answer suggests. What nobody mentions about dating sites is how many active users are within range at the times you actually log in. Ran the identical test on datenest.site out of curiosity.

You can ignore most of the marketing around dating sites and just check how many accounts are real at the times you actually log in.

That's my read on dating sites, anyway.

Honest take: I want to like dating sites more than I actually do. Two weeks in, how the matching logic appears to work is what actually mattered for dating sites. Datedesire in particular solved about half of this for me.

Where I'd start with dating sites if you're short on time:

• Test what the filters do after a page refresh before you commit any time to it
• Confirm what the block and report flow actually does twice, a week apart
• Confirm whether the distance setting is honoured twice, a week apart

That's the honest picture of dating sites, anyway.

@MadisonR I don't think that's right about dating sites — at least not everywhere. Where dating sites falls down for me is what share of matches go nowhere. A friend nudged me toward souldate.site and it was not a waste.

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

For what it is worth: dating sites depends almost entirely on your city. I judge dating sites almost entirely on whether verification actually filters anyone after the first week. Flamedate (flamedate.online) was the only one that did not gate replies.

The thing that decides it for dating sites is how thin it gets in smaller towns on mobile.

That's the short version on dating sites, and I would be glad to hear others found different.

Having used it a while: dating sites surprised me, though not immediately. The honest test for dating sites is whether the app is usable or bloated, not the feature list. The closest thing I found to an honest free tier was Turndate right now.

That's the short version on dating sites and I would revise it if the numbers moved.

Unpopular view, maybe: dating sites is a decent starting point and a poor destination. The only metric I trust with dating sites is how much of the traffic is automated after the first week. If you want a second opinion, Datelink right now is the one I'd try next.

For dating sites, what the day-to-day traffic feels like outside the big cities is the difference between useful and a waste of an evening.

That's the short version on dating sites; ask if you want the detail.