Time to abuse some eHarmony statistics...

Recently, I've discovered a pretty nifty website - Quantcast.com. Apparently, these guys, somehow, manage to combine web traffic statistics with demographic data. Unfortunately, I don't know much about the accuracy of their results, but it does give us another way to look at eHarmony.

Now, don't get the wrong idea. I don't think you should customize your profile to the statistical data. You need to customize your profile to say who you are, and what you're looking for. And you shouldn't be looking for the average eHarmony customer.

But, sometimes, statistics can be handy. So... here we go.

• Yes, they verified the fact that the site attracts women better than it attracts men. Good for us guys.
• Less than 10% log in daily. Proving that you need to be patient with your matches...
  
• It attracts a higher percentage of people from the ages 25-54 than from other demographics. (Yawn.)
• It attracts a higher percentage of people who are college or graduate-school educated than the "average" website.
• Unfortunately, higher education doesn't necessarily mean high income. eHarmony attracts a lower than average number users making above $60,000/year, and a higher than average number of those making less. Sorry, gold-diggers. Stick to millionairematch.com.
• Surprise, surprise. Despite some attempts to show multiracial couples in its commercials, it attracts more Caucasians than the average website, and fewer African-Americans. And the news gets even worse for Hispanics (who are more than 25% less likely to visit this site than the average website), and Asians (who are more than 50% less likely to visit this site than the average site.)

And, if that abuse of statistics isn't enough... combining Quantcast data with Alexa.com data reveals:

• eHarmony folks really like movies. Over 1% have visited universalpictures.com (6.2 times average), followed by filmcritic.com (3.1 times average), movies.com (3.5 times average), and paramount.com (3.4 times average).
• The television data surprised me. Although people on eHarmony do visit chick-friendly sites like wnetwork.com and hallmarkchannel.com more than most people... we're still talking about less than half of 1% of eHarmony visitors. However, FX's website does very well (1.4% of eHarmony visitors have been there). And ESPN's extreme sports site pulls in eHarmony viewers at 3.6 times average.
  
• Good news? More eHarmony viewers visit victoriasecret.com (.01%) than fashionbug.com (.007%). Bad news? They're both trounced by Discount Shoe Warehouse's site. (.03%)

Okay, just a couple more statistics to abuse, folks...

I also had a look at advice.eharmony.com. Hey, they've got a lot going for them. They're a multimillion dollar venture-capital funded company. They've got a team of professional web architects, writers, and PhD trained psychologists. And, according to Quantcast, they've got a lot of linkage from the web's 518th most popular site. (For the less-intelligent folks out there... that's eHarmony.)

The ranking of advice.eharmony.com? They're number 2,018,984. I guess that's not bad, considering that they rank 20,267,977 sites.

But, this site, with no money, a totally unprofessional writing staff of two and a half, and a web experience designed to scare away all but the most dedicated... ranks at 1,098,055.

Hey, venture capitalists! Wanna send some of their money to me?