JDate is owned by Spark Networks Limited, a subsidiary of Spark Networks Inc., a company that operates a number of internet dating websites. This particular one is a niche site aimed at Jewish singles and is available in English, French and Hebrew.

My overall impression of this site is that it’s okay, however there are some things that definitely need attention. Whether an online dating site requires a fee or is free to use, it’s incredibly annoying when you can’t check it out fully without having to register for an account. Guest users of JDate are limited to viewing only one page of the search results. In order to view more, you must register. I wanted to view more, so I registered. Ughh!

The site design is fine, although I found it a bit strange that a site aimed at Jewish singles had Christmas related advertising, but maybe that’s just me! Navigation is easy enough. I found it annoying that on my wide screen LCD monitor, JDate shows up on the extreme right hand side, I kept looking for a scroll bar to center it, but no such luck.

To hear JDate tell it, there’s quite a bit you can do with your free membership; post a profile and photo, search and view profile, receive and reply to IM’s when you’re online (but not send), but the biggest downfall of a free membership on this site, like so many others, is that you can’t email anyone. Even if you are a paid member, there’s no way of knowing if someone else is a paid member, so you run the risk of emailing a lot of people who’ll never read your stuff and have no way to reply to you.

This site is expensive. There are two membership plans; Standard and Premium. A Premium membership plan includes a highlighted profile and inclusion in the Member Spotlight. A standard membership gets you lumped in with the rest of the cast of thousands. Standard plan prices are 39.99/month for a one month membership, $33.33/month for three months and $24.99/month for 6 months. Premium will cost you $49.99 for one month, $41.33/month for three and $30.99/month for six.

There are no prorated memberships, so if you pay for three months, you can hide your profile but you ‘ll be out the $$ if you decide to cancel before your subscription runs out.

The sign up process takes a bit of time, although you can skip the fields where you describe yourself in detail and fill them out later.

Unless you opt out of receiving notifications, you’ll find your email inbox overflowing with JDate emails to the tune of three or four PER DAY. That’s just way too many. Even though I asked to be contacted twice a week, I received daily updates about who’s viewed me. I guess that’s one way of drumming up business, but in all honesty, it just ticked me off that they didn’t do as I requested.

And after spending all that time filling out my profile, including the fact that I’m interested only in men between the ages of 50 and 60, I was emailed “matches” with men who were 10 years younger! May be good for the ego, but does nothing for the site’s credibility.

A feature that I did like was the ability to create a “custom list” ie “interesting but lives far away” or “talked to on the phone” or “never again in a million years!”. You get the idea. It goes beyond what a lot of other sites have, and if you’re heavily into internet dating with this particular site, I can see it being a handy little “black book” so to speak.