Article Subject: Quick tips to spotting scam dating sites - Part 2 - Online Dating Briefs by Dr. Dato

Dr. Dato’s Brief:

Part 1, Part 3

Continuing from my first post on spotting scam/fake dating websites, this 2nd part will focus on the kind of tricks that these scammers use to lure you into buying their product or service.

Often the tell-tale signs of a scam website are the kind of exaggerated claims made by these scammers such as ‘you can make money just like Kelly can’, and they may even show you a check written with that amount. In addition, they will completely falsify the testimonials of other users and it can look very convincing.

Here is a screenshot of their testimonials section…

hard to believe testimonials are a real give away to spotting scam dating websites

Tags: scam dating sites, scam social links, scam website testimonials

Article Subject: Quick tips to spotting scam dating sites - Part 1 - Online Dating Briefs by Dr. Dato

Dr. Dato’s Brief:

Part 2, Part 3

In continuing today’s theme, I have listed a few key pointers on how to be wise to the dating sites that are all around us today. Love is a very powerful force in all of us and unfortunately some dating sites will exploit this ‘emotion’ in more ways than one. They will make false promises and claims and some of them will even fake an entire website just to get your money!

Here, I report on a potential scam website that is around us today. This is not a fake dating site but it is a way that some people will go to in length to swindle you out of money and this could equally apply to any dating websites.

The culprit website is called internetnews8.com and it’s a totally fake website, but to the untrained user the website looks very genuine. See the picture below.

fig. 1. A completely fake website but it looks so genuine and real?

How do we tell if this website is real or fake, just click on the image below to see an enlarged image of the notes I made on the website (you may need to click twice in succession to see the enlarged view).

Whenever you suspect something is not right, this is what you must observe:

• Look at the url (on the address bar), it will change to different pages as you navigate through the site. In this example, a window always pops up to try and sell you their product which by the way is also a scam.
• They will lift images from reputable sites and make it look very real. Try to click on any of those images or links and see if they actually take you anywhere genuine. Most likely, they will bring you back to their site (with a pop-up) of course.
• Look at the testimonials and follow your gut feelings (if something is too good to be true, it often is!)

I will have more information on detecting scam websites, on the 2nd part of this series.

fig 2. How to detect spam dating websites very quickly and easily (click on the image to enlarge, click again if you dont see the larger image)

Tags: detecting scam dating sites, how to spot fake websites, scam websites spotting

Article Subject: A word about some online dating review sites

Dr. Dato’s Brief:

Today the main theme of my postings seem to be focussed on the advertising segment of online dating and I thought I would pursue this further which could be of use to my readers.

As I mentioned in my previous post, contextual advertising really hits home very highly targeted adverts to the page you are browsing based on your behavioral analysis.

Since online dating sites have been doing very well based on the large yearly gains made by companies such as match, eharmony etc. it is only fair to say that the ‘cottage industries’ supporting these sites will also move up the scale. Such marketing sites include review sites, advice and relationship sites, press releases, blogs, newsfeed, tv, radio, contextual advertising and more.

I wanted to focus today on some of the review sites and to make some of the users more aware of their motives.

You will come across review dating sites that aggressively pushes their website through many channels such as sponsored linkings, search engine positioning etc and you need to be careful what you are dealing with here. Such sites include this one called top10bestdatingsites.com which claims to do comparison tests on the top dating sites and steer you to the dating sites that they have listed on their sites.

You have probably noticed on TV when you see a drug commercial and at the end of the ad. they would say something like, ‘taking so and so drug, can lead you to vomiting, suicidal tendencies, dizziness…’ and so forth.

If the same were to apply to these types of review sites, it would read as, ‘we cannot guarantee that you will find your perfect date as we have implied, because we are here just to make money, if you did click on any of the so called ‘top dating site’ links that we have provided, you will be doing us a great favor, making us money and making our affiliated dating company lots of money too’.

Don’t believe me?
Check out this review of zoosk as opposed to top10bestdatingsites.com review of this site. Also the rating they have of the site to the left is completely false!

dating review sites - are some of these for real?

Tags: about review websites, dating review sites, sincerity in dating reviews

Article Subject: Contextual advertising in online dating

Dr. Dato’s Brief:

So online dating does not have the stigma once associated with it and you talk to a friend and proudly confess that you met your sweetheart through this great online dating site. This may even encourage you to try it and see for yourself.

It has been said that one in five couples now meet online and a majority through the online dating services that seem to be all over the place. If you ever pay attention to the adverts that come up time and time again when you browse the internet, you may be wandering how these sites have figured out how they unwittingly know that you are looking for a car to purchase and maybe looking for a date?

This is all down to contextual advertising where the major websites of today not only conduct the clicks and traffic coming to their site but they conduct ‘behavioral analysis’ of each of the users.

For example, you may be looking for a date in say facebook because you clicked on one of the ads related to a dating site. Rest assured you will be seeing more of those targeted advertising next time you came back to the site. In the same way you check your email in gmail, yahoo or hotmail, the behavioral analysis (or engines) of these websites allow them to push very contextually driven ads. to your page.

In effect the page you are viewing has been ‘custom’ designed with its own unique advertisements just made for you!

online targeted ads such as dating websites are uniquely served by the website you are visiting

Tags: contextual online dating, online dating sites, targeted dating adverts

Article Subject: New MrRight.com.au dating site started by Mr. Right?

Dr. Dato’s Brief:

Apparently, we have yet another one of these new dating sites clambering to get noticed with their unique way of getting two people together. If only I realized that it was such an overwhelming task of getting two people together and keeping them together

This website from down under called MrRight.com.au was founded by Matt Right (uh!), hmm.. wandering if his persona has anything to do with this. However, he has claimed that his dating site was inspired by women.

The premise of the site is very simple, women go to the website and pick the men they would want to date and place them in a shopping bag and the lucky few men can communicate with the woman as long as she feels comfortable. If at any time the woman is displeased with any of the men, she can simply remove the man from her cart and there is no further communication with the man.

The idea came about because according to the founder Matt Right, many women in the online dating services are inundated with rude and obnoxious men that can put them off from dating altogether. In this way, women have complete control and men can sit back and let the women choose them. How sad for the ones who never get picked, reminds me of back in the times when some kids would site right at the back of the class and watch the world go by…

women select men they choose to date - more power to the women!

Tags: australian dating site, MrRight.com.au, women in charge, women pick men dating