What Is an Elo Score on Dating Apps?

An Elo score is the rumored hidden rating that a dating app gives you, based on how many people like you, which then decides how many people see you. The name comes from a method for ranking chess players. None of the three apps covered here says it works this way now. Tinder's help center calls Elo an outdated measure that its technology no longer relies on. Hinge and OkCupid describe different systems altogether.

Everyone has noticed the same thing. In some weeks the app seems to show your profile to everybody, and in others nobody sees it. A hidden rating is an easy explanation, because it gives you something to blame and something to chase.

The trouble is that the belief sends effort in the wrong direction. A man who thinks he has a score to raise starts gaming the swipe, deleting and rebuilding his account, or paying for tricks. A man who knows what the apps actually look at spends the same time on things that work.

Tinder says its system continuously factors in how you engage, through your likes, your nopes and what is on profiles. The most important factor, it says, is being active. It prioritizes potential matches who are active, and active at the same time you are.

It also says it weighs distance, the interests and lifestyle details people add, similar photos, and how often profiles are liked or noped. And it says its algorithm does not track social status, religion or ethnicity.

Read that list as a man. Nothing in it is a number you earned by being attractive last month. It is a list of habits and inputs: use the app regularly, fill in your interests, and swipe on women you would actually message.

Hinge says its matching algorithm learns from who you like, skip and match with, and then recommends compatible people. There is no mention of a rating.

That is a different idea from Elo. It does not rank you against everyone else. It learns what you tend to like and shows you more of the same. Our view is that this makes your own behavior the thing to watch. If you like everyone, the app has nothing to learn from. If you like women you would genuinely write to, the recommendations get sharper.

OkCupid is the one app on this list that puts its number in the open. It shows a Match percentage built from the questions each person has answered, including what they are looking for.

So on OkCupid there is a score, but it is not about how desirable you are. It describes how closely two people's answers line up. You can influence it directly by answering honestly, and you can read hers before you write.

Look across the three and the same three inputs keep appearing.

Activity: showing up regularly. Preferences: the age range, distance and answers you set, which decide who is even eligible to appear. And your own choices: who you like, skip and match with, which the apps use to learn what to show you.

None of these is a verdict on your worth as a man. All of them are things you can adjust this week.

a dating coach says the apps are businesses, and that paying members are the ones that bring in revenue, so the apps have a reason to show them more people. His advice is to test paid features cheaply and keep the ones that work, rather than refuse on principle.

That is his view, not a claim from the apps. For you, the sensible reading is the practical one. A paid feature can put your page in front of more women. It cannot make a woman who sees it like it.

Open the app in short regular sessions rather than one long weekend. Set an age range and distance that match the women you would really meet. Fill in the interests and details the app asks for, and make them true.

Like only the women you would write to, and write to them while the match is fresh. Keep one account, because deleting it throws away what the app has learned from you.

Even a perfect understanding of the system only decides who sees your page. A woman who sees it decides in a second. If your first photo is dark, or your face is half hidden, or your words give her nothing to picture, no inside knowledge changes her answer.

a dating coach's point about the numbers is that they are winnable, but only when you fix the step that is actually failing. Count how many women see you, how many likes become matches, and how many matches answer your first message. The weakest of the three is where your effort belongs.