Compare · Dating
Who reviews dating, and can you trust them?
Dating apps and sites, where "best of" rankings are almost entirely affiliate commissions. Here is every review site we track in this category, graded head to head.
| Grade | Review site | |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | C- | Grades: Dating apps and sites — news coverage, some first-hand reviews, popularity-based sidebar lists DatingNews.com is a legitimate editorial news outlet with a named staff, but it publishes no methodology, no affiliate or conflict-of-interest disclosure, and no scoring criteria, making its app rankings and reviews unverifiable by readers. |
| 2 | C- | Grades: Ranked lists of individual dating coaches and coaching services across consumer sub-niches TopDatingCoaches.com publishes a plausible-sounding weighted methodology and claims editorial independence, but the absence of any advertiser or affiliate disclosure — combined with a "Get Quotes" lead-gen feature embedded in its ranked lists — means readers have no way to verify whether coach placement is financially neutral. |
| 3 | D+ | Grades: Online dating sites and matchmaking services globally, with US editorial focus DatingScout presents 17 years of structured editorial reviews but buries its affiliate model — every review embeds tracked referral links with no per-page disclosure and no public methodology, making its claimed independence unverifiable. |
| 4 | D+ | Grades: Dating apps and websites reviewed and ranked by category DatingAdvice.com's own disclosure concedes that affiliate compensation may affect the order products appear in rankings, which undermines any claim of editorial independence and makes the site better understood as a monetized referral directory dressed in review clothing. |
| 5 | D | Grades: Dating apps and websites (approximately 15 platforms reviewed in the primary list, with category-filtered sub-lists) DatingRanking.net is an affiliate-driven editorial site that has since redirected to datingmasters.net; its successor acknowledges sponsored content while claiming reviews are "not paid," a contradiction it does not resolve, and the methodology behind its numerical scores is not documented. |
| 6 | D- | Grades: Dating websites and apps BestDatingSites.com earns affiliate commissions on every subscription it drives, publishes no ranking methodology, names no reviewers, and has no disclosed criteria — the ratings are ungradeable by design, which is the design. |
| 7 | D- | Grades: Professional matchmaking services and dating coaches, primarily US-based MatchmakerReview.com presents itself as a review site but operates as an undisclosed lead-generation directory: its own homepage (copyright sumoJACK LLC, 2023) reveals no ranking methodology, no editorial criteria, no explanation of what "verified" means, and no disclosure of any commercial relationship between the site and the matchmakers it lists. |
Columns are the five rubric dimensions, scored 0-5, with each column's weight shown in its header; independence and evidence carry the most, 30% each. See the full methodology. Each row also shows a scoring-confidence chip (how sure we are of that grade) and a type tag; hover any chip for what it means.