As I was googling the other day to make sure we were still listed at the top of the page on the search engines, I decided to look up all of the Country Singles, Horse Singles, Farming Singles, Ranch, Rural, Rodeo..... single type of websites that were on the web and was I amazed! I guess amazed is the word for it. I don't even know if I can count all of these types of websites.... Where did they all come from?....
I remember back in 1996 when we first made our print singles newspaper into an online website. We were the first Country Singles idea to finally make it on the web. Because there was nothing else like it, we grew very quickly. There wasn't a lot of singles sites of any kind at that time on the net. We made sure we were first of all country, that our members were country and that our site was kept clean and what we could call "G-Rated".
Then in 1998, we decided to change our name and turned it into Country Singles Online. Aaah, a site for the true single cowboy and cowgirl. Where you could come, kick off your boots, hang your hat and find others with the same country interests. Once again, it stayed country, G-Rated and we knew we had found a niche that was going to be very successful. As the years went by, we noticed little country singles sites that would come and go, but nothing really competed with what we had to offer. Then in the early 2000's there were a couple of websites that started to advertise the horse/cowboy single websites and started to become a competition for us. But it was a good competition as we kind of fed off of one another.
As I just did a search, I was "amazed" at what there is out there now. Never in my wildest imagination did I ever think there would be so many sites that were country single, cowboy single, equestrian single, farming single, rural single, western single, rodeo single etc., etc... At first I thought, how are people even going to know the true country sites from the other every day singles sites? Then I clicked into some of them. Yes, they state they are country, but as you will look at them, they are a singles site with a cowboy and horse on the front. A few of them are true country singles sites. Please be aware that many of these sites have a national singles database, but aren't country.
I remember an email we received from a viewer a while back who asked us, "I just did a search and found over 20 different country singles websites, why should I join yours?" Actually, back then I thought the competition was good for our site, but now I wonder if singles are actually able to sift through them?
So, I guess my parting thoughts in this long, drawn out blog is, please do your homework. Is the site Country? Look at the profiles, is that person country? If you want a wholesome site, is it wholesome? Do they provide all kinds of lifestyles? If those things don't matter to you than you'll do great on any of them. But if those things matter to you, please do some homework, check them out, ask them questions and make sure it's for the type of person that you are.
Thanks for reading! I know this was long and I won't be publishing blogs this long in the future, I promise : ). I just thought this was important to bring up.
Happy Searching and see you on the trail!
