I tend to agree with Matt here. We @CupidsElves like to think of it as the “Dodged A Bullet” factor. The whole point of online dating profiles and pictures, is to sort through those you may or may not be interested in dating and/or establishing a relationship with.
It’s true, that everything you write in your profile (and the way you write it, ie; structure, grammar, spelling) has the potential to run people off from contacting you. We see it as an auto-sort feature of sorts and view it as a good thing.

For example, you list NASCAR somewhere on your profile. A woman who hates NASCAR sees it listed on your profile and passes you over. Had you not listed it on your profile, she may have contacted you. However, it’s unlikely that you’ll convert her over to team NASCAR. And if her opposition to it is vehement enough, it could later serve as the eliminating factor. Why waste each other’s time when she could have easily and painlessly self-eliminated herself?
We believe that the more you reveal of yourself, the more self-reflective and mature you appear, and the better potential partners can weigh your compatibility with them.
Narrowing the field is a good thing if a relationship you seek. Keeping your options open is best for those wishing to play the field.

That’s interesting to know and kind of makes sense, but I still think that being too generic isn’t helping anyone out. Yes, having a air of mystery is favorable but what if you could be mysterious and have a unique profile at the same time? Also, it seems like a generic profile would have to depend on pictures more to generate attraction. Something to think about. Perhaps I’ll run some tests in the future on generic versus unique profiles.

@Evan .. doesn’t a profile written by a third person lose your personality. Surely if you have a sparklingly witty profile but can’t really string an amusing sentence together your date is going to notice?

Want to know how to write a profile that doesn’t sound like it could be written by everyone else?

Go to http://www.e-cyrano.com.

You talk. We write.

The more people know about you the more likely they are to reject you and not want to date you. Every bit of information a person is given about another person causes them to make a judgement. I find on plentyoffish the best profiles are not short and not to long. You have to give a person some information but not to much.

reading, outdoors, traveling and cooking increaes your chances of finding someone. Putting in cars or football actually hurts you.

I thought about this and yes that is one possible way to help increase traffic, though the benefits of using generic often used interests like “Music” or “Movies” just means that your profile gets lost in the shuffle, the traffic increase is negligible compared to the benefits of creating something unique.

I think this idea only works when listing specific interests, this way when you do get people searching by interest, you will get someone more likely to match your personality type. It might be less traffic, but the quality is higher.

It was a good Idea, and thought using the “Interests” section would create some pretty good looking clouds. I also tried it just using the “about me” section but I found that it wasn’t as useful a comparison, considering a lot of the words are pretty general terms used whenever anyone writes anything. Regardless, thanks for the idea and can’t wait to see what else you have up your sleeve