How Matches Are Made
The matching process itself has three separate elements:
  1. Exact Matching
    If enabled by the Match Maker Administrator, the following Attributes and Desires must match exactly. For example, if Age Range Exact Matching is enabled, and in Desires you specify wanting an age range of 22 to 30, all possible matches younger than 22 or older than 30 will be discarded. Exact Matching items include:
    • A specified gender (or gender unimportant)
    • A specified age range
    • A specified height range
    • The type of relationship sought
    If you do not see one or more of the above Exact Matching items on your Profile questionnaire, the Match Maker Admininstrator has disabled Exact Matching for the missing items.
    In addition to the items above, any Attribute may be transformed into an Exact Matching item through use of the Essential! rating.
  2. Attribute Ratings Matching
    The heart of the matching algorithm depends on Attribute Ratings. You can give each Attribute one of five Ratings:
    1. Unimportant
      Gives an attribute an effective score of 0. Thus, whether a potential match has it or not will not affect their score in any way.
    2. Positive Number
      Signifies a favorable attribute. The number chosen will be added to the score of potential matches who possess this attribute.
    3. Negative Number
      Signifies an unfavorable attribute. The number chosen will be subtracted from the score of potential matches who possess this attribute.
    4. Essential!
      Signifies an attribute you are unwilling to do without. When one attribute in a category is marked as Essential!, all other Ratings are disregarded, and all potential matches must match this attribute exactly. The only exception is when there are multiple Essential! attributes specified in the same category; in this case, potential matches must match one of the attributes labeled as Essential!, and all the rest are ignored.
    5. No Thanks!
      Signifies an attribute you find intolerable. Any potential matches possessing this attribute are thrown out.
    It is important to use Essential! and No Thanks! sparingly, as excessive use can severely limit the number of matches you find.
  3. Interest Matching.
    Your interests are compared with those of every potential match to determine where your interests align. The percentage score is the interests matched divided by all interests selected by both parties.
Bi-Directional Matching
All matching is done bi-directionally, which means that for every potential match that a user finds, the potential match's desires are checked and compared with the attributes of the user currently searching for matches. So not only does the potential match have to score favorably with the user, but the user's profile also has to hold up to what the potential match is looking for. This is analogous to users being able to "see each other" if they could be matched up. So, for example, if there's a 40 year old bald man looking for 16 year old blondes, he will find no matches unless there are 16 year old blondes out there looking for 40 year old bald men.
When a match is found, three scores are calculated that signify the strength of the match. The composite Total Score is a combination of the following elements:
  1. How the match measures up against your idea of the perfect match.
  2. How you measure up against the match's idea of the perfect match.
  3. Interests shared between you and the match out of the total number possible.
The Interests Shared category is given smaller weight due to the fact high scores in this category are very hard to come by.