 There are thousands of dating sites on the internet today. These
personals sites can offer dating possibilities to all singles or they may
specialize and offer their service to only a certain type of single. More
dating services have tried to evolved into a niche market since competition has
become very fearless in the last few years. The smaller dating sites just
can't compete with the advertising dollars that the large services spend.
The major categories that online dating sites specialize in are:
General Dating Sites
This category contains the most sites as well as the largest dating services out
there. These type of dating sites don't specialize in any one area.
They have members from all ages, backgrounds, personalities, interests and locations.
All singles who joined a dating site that falls in a category listed below could
have joined one of these sites as well.
Location Specific Dating
The next dating site type is based on it's members location. This can range from
being a country specific dating service, and all the way down to city specific.
These services tend to be very popular with younger singles as they allow people
to meet new friends in their area. These dating sites also tend to hold
more single events since there members tend to live close together.
Senior Dating Services
As the name suggests, senior dating sites cater to singles over the age of
65. Most of these types of dating services usually count singles aged 50
or greater in their demographic but some sites advertise for people
aged 40 and over. This are is one of the fastest growing areas thanks to
the aging baby boomers.
Religious Dating
These dating sites usually focus on either Christian dating in general or on
just a specific religion like Catholic or Jewish. To attract members,
these sites tend to have a variety of interest groups as well as message boards
(very popular with members).
Adult Dating Sites
As the name suggests these sites are for adults only. They deal with
singles more interested in a sexual encounter than a long term relationship.
Marriage is usually not looked for on these types of sites. These sites also
usually have a much larger percentage of men than woman (not that they advertise
this).
Ethnic Specific
Dating Services based on different cultures are becoming more popular.
These sites help ethnic minorities in such countries as the United States,
Canada and the United Kingdom to find each other. These singles usually
have a strong cultural background and believe families are very important.
Miscellaneous Dating
This includes all other dating site categories. Popular dating
sites on the rise include sites for singles who are heavier than average (BBW),
dating sites that deal with single parents
or dating services with singles from certain jobs like the military or firemen.
As you can see there are many different types of dating services. To
compete with the established dating services, more dating sites have had to start
specializing. This is good news for the dating single as it means more choice
for us with sites tailored to fit our needs. | 
