Match.com acquires Singlesnet

Match.com looking to reverse declining traffic and overall user experience of Singlesnet

Match.com announced on Thursday it's signed an agreement to acquire Singlesnet.  Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

It's an interesting purchase for Match.com.  In one way, the acquisition makes sense - acquire a competitor company.  But in this case, Singlesnet's traffic has been in decline.  Greg Blatt, CEO of Match.com admitted in a statement,

"While Singlesnet's traffic is currently in decline, we believe that by applying our category expertise we can reverse that trend, increase the site's profitability and improve the overall user experience. This is more of a value acquisition than a strategic one, and Singlesnet will predominantly be run as a standalone business."

At the same time, Singlesnet has been around since 1998, and built a decent amount of traffic and users.  Blatt argued, "the addition of the site's considerable traffic to our existing aggregation of traffic in this single category should open new monetization opportunities for Match.com's collective portfolio of domestic online dating brands."  According to comScore, Singlesnet saw 3 million unique visitors last month, while Match.com saw 6.1 million.

Match.com, which is owned by IAC, has made prior acquisitions.  It purchased People Media back in July of 2009 for $80 million.  People Media owned and operated 27 dating sites at the time, all of which Match.com scooped up.

Along with the acquisition, Adrian Ong who joined Match.com from Soulmates Technology, another company acquired by Match back in 2002, will assume responsibility for Singlesnet.  

In the end, its another move to grow Match.com's network in a time where it's facing some major competition including dating sites like eHarmony and PlentyofFish.