1 – Match.com sites (5,392,000) – Yahoo Personals is now owned and operated by Match, MSN Personals and Love@AOL.
2 – PlentyofFish (3,849,000) – Free dating website also known as POF.com.
3 – eHarmony (2,200,000)
4 – Speeddate (2,137,000) – Fast growing property with great chat features.
5 – People Media Sites (2,064,000) – This is now owned by Match.com and includes properties like BlackPeopleMeet.com and SeniorPeopleMeet.com which are both partnered with AOL.
6 – Zoosk (1,579,000) – They grew fast with a social media applicationffffff
7 – OK Cupid (1,309,000) – Also owned by Match.com now. %100 Free dating site.
8 – Mate1 (1,029,000)
9 – DateHookup (1,021,000) – Free dating site with steady growth operated out of Sacramento, CA
10 – Spark Networks (958,000) – JDate.com is their main site but they own and operate other ethnic, religious and niche dating sites.

Below are the Hitwise Top Free Dating Sites in the US from August, 2011:

1 – PlentyofFish
2 – Adam4Adam – free gay dating site
3 – DateHookup.com
4 – OKCupid
5 – WooMe – recently acquired by Zoosk so most likely won’t be free anymore.

I always take the Hitwise and Comscore industry numbers with a grain of salt as they are generated by estimation algorithms and don’t necessarily reflect actuals. If you visit the about us page on Speeddate.com they reported over 7M monthly uniques back in April. Another tool that shows a pretty good picture of site growth and traffic numbers is compete.com which I use to see if there are new movers in the dating industry. This is just a landscape picture of sites in the US and if you look in Canada you’ll see sites like Lavalife.ca and Meetic.co.uk in the UK on the top of the lists. Good luck on your search for love online!

1. PlentyofFish.com (free dating)
2. Singlesnet.com
3. Match.com
4. Yahoo Personals
5. DateHookup.com (free dating)
6. Adam4Adam (gay personals)
7. eHarmony.com
8. TRUE
9. Blackpeoplemeet (owned by Match)
10. Manhunt.net (gay personals)
11. Seniorpeoplemeet.com (owned by Match)
12. OnlineBootyCall.com
13. OkCupid (free dating)
14. Christian Mingle
15. Chemistry.com (Match.com premium dating)
16. Mingle2.com (free dating)
17. Mate1.com
18. Dream-Marriage.com
19. Black Singles
20. OutPersonals.com (gay personals)
21. SingleParentMeet.com (owned by Match)
22. Woome.com (live video dating)
23. Cupid.com
24. Zoosk.com (facebook app dating)
25. MSN Match (this should be added to Match.com)

I am not sure why Hitwise isn’t tracking the Friendfinder network, Meetic and Perfectmatch.com. I wonder where Date.com/Matchmaker.com, Lavalife and Jdate show up on this list.

Comscore ~ 6/09 / Unique Visitors

1. Singlesnet (3,428,000)
2. Yahoo Personals (3,159,000)
3. PlentyofFish (3,026,000)
4. Match (2,990,000)
5. TRUE (2,780,000)
6. People Media Sites (2,001,000) – BlackPeopleMeet, SeniorPeopleMeet.com
7. eHarmony (1,678,000)
8. Spark Networks (1,368,000) – Jdate, AmericanSingles.com
9. Mate1.com (1,301,000)
10. DateHookup.com (721,000)

If you add People Media to Match then they would be around 4,991,000 uniques which put them on top. Match recently acquired People Media’s network of sites. I am surprised to see eHarmony so low on this list considering all of the money they spend on TV placements.

Break ups are definitely no fun for both parties involved. One of the most important things for you to come the realization is being comfortable with yourself again and not having a dependency to just jump right back into another relationship until you have had enough alone time. You have to get your head cleared even if you are getting out of a relationship to be with another person. You should have enough respect for your last partner to settle your differences with them and let the wounds heal a bit before you just jump in head first to another one. People are always making this mistake and end up paying for it in the long run. I would recommend that you spend some time with your friends especially the ones that you might have pushed away when you were together with your last partner.

One of the other hard things for people after a break up is investing the time to learn about another person and getting back into the dating scene. I seriously recommend you spend a few weeks or months being single again and enjoying yourself, family and friends. Once you are comfortable with your status of being single you will see that you will have opportunities all around you to meet new people. You can try online dating if you are trying to meet someone outside of your immediate circle of friends or the bar scene if you want to keep it casual. Church is also a good place to meet singles if you are at all religious. If you are a guy then you might want to try some Salsa or Swing dance classes as there is usually about a 4-to-1 ratio of women to men. If you are a pet lover then there are tons of singles that walk their pets in dog parks and to dog friendly eateries. Pets can be an easy conversation ice breaker if you have any issues with approaching strangers. If you are into sports and outdoor activities then get involved in league play where there are big groups of players like softball, bowling or volleyball.

-Brian R.