Black Singles Review

Black Singles has an obvious target market. Maybe some individuals are looking for interracial relationships, but folks on the site seek someone sharing a similar cultural heritage. It’s like most other dating sites and has the usual services to help members connect, but it’s a community, too, with added features that bring everyone together for more than just dating.

The profile process is much the same as on other sites except when it comes to identifying your ethnicity, which is a bit of an exception. There are several choices appropriate to the site’s audience, but they tend to be somewhat broad. I found that many individuals chose to describe their ethnic background a bit more in their freeform written descriptions.

“The largest limitation to Black Singles is the inability for non-paying members to be contacted by premium members by any means besides instant messaging.”

Search options include a keyword choice. There are localized results to within 10 miles of your zip or postal code. Results list a summarized version of each profile, which, when clicked, reveals the member’s full profile as well as his or her last login date. One can also choose to browse members in the form of a photo album.

Only paid subscribers on BlackSingles.com can read or send emails. It is free for everyone to reply to a premium member’s instant message, but you must upgrade to make contact by any other means, including initiating instant messages. You also can’t participate in chat rooms or post on message boards without paying first.

BlackSingles has several options when it comes to matchmaking features. First, you can receive a list of potential matches that are delivered to your offsite email. They will meet the requirements for your ideal partner according to the criteria filled out when you create your profile. Second, there is a personality test, which generated a rather accurate result. At least for me it did. Your profile is color-coded to reflect what personality type you are.

More interestingly, profiles display “yes, no and maybe” as clickable choices above each profile. Selecting “yes” sends an email directly to the other member. In it, your profile is displayed with three others. It isn’t revealed which one of you among the three said yes. Choosing “maybe” means you might be included in a similar email of four possible matches. A “no” means you will still show up in search results for the other person, but you will no longer be included in their possible email matches.

The site does have a decent number of visitors and is competitively, if not inexpensively, priced. The largest limitation to Black Singles is the inability for non-paying members to be contacted by premium members by any means besides instant messaging. Its popularity and reasonable pricing partially offset that issue, though.