Free Online Dating

Many businesses are struggling right now, but the business of finding love is going strong. Internet dating is experiencing tremendous growth, but it’s not always about forking over money to meet a potential match. Today a growing number of cash-strapped singles are looking to give free love a whole new meaning.

Jordanna Petkun is searching for her soulmate.

Jordanna Petkun: One of the many things that I am looking for in my match is someone with a spiritual element to himself or his life.

A frequent fan of paid dating sites, Petkun figures she’s spent anywhere from $700 to $1000 the last several years. Now, she’s switching gears.

Petkun: It felt really mindless of me to spend on dating as important as it was to me.

She’s hoping love strikes at OK-CUPID. One of several sites designed to match singles for free! No pay dating destinations are seeing a boom during this bust. Traffic is way up over the past year in the U.S. with a 58 percent spike since November alone. Joe Tracy, publisher of Online Dating Magazine, says the trend makes sense.

Joe Tracy: During bad economic times, people generally like to reprioritize their goals and, as a result, relationships move up on that list.

Plenty of Fish is one of the biggest free dating sites, recently hitting a million users in one day. Like on most sites, free services offer profiles and notices of events in your area.

Tracy: A lot of free online dating services allow you to have a blog, so there’s a blog associated with your profile and you can actually go on there every single day and type out your feelings about things happening in the world.

In terms of safety and security both the leading paid and free sites say they have conduct policies, reserve the right to monitor behavior and terminate offenders. But Tracy says paid sites have an advantage when it comes to tracking site abusers.

Tracy: As far as online dating services go, people have to leave a credit card.

And that contains easily verifiable information. He says in any online dating situation, it comes down to common sense. Once you post, guard your identity until you feel safe. Jordanna is careful and loves that looking for love isn’t taking a toll on her wallet.

With any dating site, experts say it is strongly recommended that you check the privacy policy. Some sites may share some information with third parties for the purpose of advertising or marketing.