Having tried and tested a few dating sites and not been at all impressed with most of them, match.com being the biggest scam site of them all (read the reviews!) okcupid was a breath of fresh air, nicely laid out, easy to use and with genuine people!…best part though, it is all for free, so you can start messaging people straight away and with the peice of mind that they are going to be able to read you message! Finally a dating site that does what it is meant to do and does it for free. Would of given it 5 stars if it wasn’t for the fact that for some reason not that many people have stared using it yet, but give it time hopefully this will be the only dating site people will use. Just for the fact that it is all for free, for how long I am not sure but make the most of it whilst you can!

Initially OkCupid is a great site that puts you in touch with lots of other people. The best thing about it is that it’s free! It is also rather easy to determine what a person is like by the way profiles are constructed and filled in. It also encourages members to join in and become proactive, by making it easy to contact other members and providing customisable “tests”.

They make it easy to upload photos in addition, even going as far as providing a real-time cropping tool.

Bad Points

OkCupid reminds me of Faceparty.

General Comments

I was a former member of OkCupid when it was in its infancy, and it started out as a great site. I was able to meet a lot of people, with or without photos, albeit none in the UK.

Unfortunately I feel that the increase in members has led to its loss of appeal for me: it’s no longer about interacting with people, all I seem to experience is people who use attention-grabbing photos.

This is easily the best designed dating website out there, I should know, I’ve tried a few! Easy to use, uncluttered and kinda fun. They’ve got just about every feature that every other dating site has, but they do it so much better, prettier and there’s clearly a lot of care into getting everything right.

There’s plenty of space to write about yourself (other sites can be too restrictive), or some optional extra boxes if you need some pointers. There’s some multiple choice questions that are fun to do (also optional) and you can even write little explanations next to your answers for extra comedy points.

You can hide people from your searches if you wish, block other members easily, bookmark your favourites or mark someone as ‘liked’. There’s no moderation on what photos you can upload (a good thing – other sites make you wait), but you can report others if they break the house rules. There’s even optional upgrades if you want to browse ‘invisibly’ or if you only want to appear to certain members. The in-site emailing looks great, and you can even continue the chat it a popup window. Plus bags of cute little quirks and nice touches that I won’t bloat this review with – just try it out!

The only downside is they seem to be quite under-advertised, so they could do with more numbers on the site – surprising as the other big players are so heavily advertised but (from personal experience) are utterly terrible.

Shame, because at the basic (i.e. free) level of membership, the website is actually useful in that you can do a basic search and also read and send messages. Your profile gives you plenty of opportunity to describe yourself and what you’re looking for and any photos you upload appear instantly – instead of having to wait for them to be approved, the site relies on its members reporting inappropriate/offensive content which in my book is a good thing. The multi-choice questions are OK, although they could do with thinning out as some are utterly inane. The site gets bonus points for allowing you to pay for upgrades via PayPal (although in the end I never bothered) as I won’t even consider using a dating site that won’t let me pay via a third party company where I have full control over what payments go out. Finally, I was never bothered by spammers so it appears the site’s owners have got that issue sorted out as well. The only problem I found was the lack of potential dates (and I’m not THAT choosy!) that were actively using the site, and as I included Nottingham and Sheffield in my searches we’re not exactly talking about being out in the boondocks here. That said, your mileage may well vary from mine and because it’s pretty nicely designed and fairly useful without laying any cash down, I can’t say anything other than I suggest you at least give it a go.

OkCupid was brilliant a few years ago. So many people to talk to and went on some fantastic dates. However, it has gone down hill in the last year or so.

The new way they run the site has actually made things more difficult. I can’t see all the messages people send to me, or all the profiles available. And it’s supposed to be a free site.

Also, OkCupid is exactly what it says it is. A DATING SITE. It’s hard to find a relationship on there. Most of the guys want to date for a while, but not commit.

The people I met were genuine and I had fun, but it’s not the place to go if you’re looking for something long term. For that I give it 3 out of 5.

Also, I’ve know people who got banned or deleted from the site for no reason. OkCupid doesn’t respond to appeals they can’t put their side of the story across, which I think is a bit unfair.