I think its time profiles that are over 26 week old should be removed from the search section of the site. We spent ages looking through a simple search only to find 80% were over 40 weeks old. If a member has not visited the site after 26 weeks the should be placed in a holding bay.
I used to do this with a site I helped run. After 26 weeks anyone who hadn't posted or looked in at their account was sent an email asking them to contact admin or use their account within the next 14 days or their account would be deleted.
Mine was a free site so they weren't losing any money just access to the site unless they re-registered.
In the 2 yrs I was on the site only one person ever contacted me after their account was deleted about re-registration. It cleared out a lot of dead wood and kept the site active for those who were serious about it.
DD
I'm with you with the stuff about old profiles. I know I had the case of cold feet when I first joined and disappeared for about 4 months before returning bit couldn't old adverts be deleted?
Thinking about out of date profiles, yes some will be taking a break, but how many have left never to return? quite a lot I would imagine. As I tend to view the adverts rather than trawl through profiles, the results are listed in date order newest first, so out of date profiles are not really an issue.
What would be gained by removing old profiles?
a smaller database of users so more space on the server, quicker search's
on the down side for admin, they won't be able claim that there are the vast amount of members they do now.
Profiles are one thing - photo ads are another:
The primary purpose of photo ads is to be a place where people can get in touch with other people (for whatever reason) if they feel they are looking for the same type of thing... is it not?
Unfortunately once you get past the fist few pages it becomes a place to see who you could have briefly contacted if you had been looking 2 years earlier.
If you bought Exchange and Mart because it claimed to have 600,000 cars for sale - what would you think if you found out 197,002 had been scrapped, 232,085 were sold last year, 37,873 were now standing on bricks in a carpark and so on...?
In short - How can it be a contact ad if the person/couple don’t sign in to be contacted?
FB - glad she doesn't search ads!