Found someone special or just need a break? You can now pause your account from your account page. While you're paused, you won't appear in anyone's matches, nobody can like or message you, and we won't send you any emails.

Everything is kept and you can resume your account at any time.

As promised, starting today you need a published Selfie Check, or an approved ID verification, to see your matches, to appear in other people's matches, and to send likes. That means everyone you see in your matches has shown they're a real, live person.

No selfie yet? Head to your account page and take the Selfie Check. It takes less than a minute. You can keep up to five selfies and pick which one shows on your profile.

Took a selfie but didn't publish it? Only a published selfie counts, so open your account page and publish one.

Already ID verified? You don't need to do anything.

Until you're done, your Matches tab lists what's left. People who like you, people you've liked, and your conversations all stay where they are.

As always, let us know what you think.

GoodDate exists to help rid the world of loneliness, and starting today you can help us do it. We're now accepting donations through our donate page.

Donations go toward spreading the word, so more people find GoodDate and everyone gets better matches nearby, and toward keeping the platform running. As a 501(c)3 nonprofit, your donation is tax deductible.

Nothing changes for members: GoodDate is still completely free, with no ads and no premium tier, and donating never affects your matches. If you can't donate, telling a single friend about us helps just as much.

Human Verification is now the Selfie Check, and the selfie it takes is shown on your profile next to your Selfie Checked badge instead of being seen only by GoodDate staff. It's blurred for members you haven't liked, exactly like your other photos, and it's still removed when you delete your account. Not happy with it? You can retake it once a day, and your current selfie stays until the new one passes.

If you haven't added any photos, your match card and profile now show your selfie instead of a blank placeholder.

Because the old selfies were taken on the promise that nobody but staff would see them, we're deleting all of them. If you were verified before today, head to your account page and take the check again under the new terms. It takes less than a minute.

Safe Verification now matches your ID against that same selfie, so there's no face photo to upload anymore. Take the Selfie Check first and the rest of the form follows.

A selfie or an ID is going to be required to see matches and to appear in other people's matches, so this is a good time to get it done. As always, let us know what you think.

We've reworked how match scores are calculated, and most of you will see your matches score quite a bit higher. Across everyone's current matches, the typical match went from 49% to 83%.

Only the questions you've both answered count. Before, every question either of you had answered went into the highest possible score, even questions only one of you answered. So if you answered 20 questions, they answered 60, and you agreed on all 20 you shared, you'd only see 50% instead of 100% you'll now see.

Confidence. Next to each match percentage there's now a confidence badge. It's based on how many questions you've both answered. Answer more to get this higher!

What you might notice. Higher percentages, some new matches (and maybe a "new matches" email), and a few matches that drop off until you share more questions. If your matches show low confidence, the best fix is to answer more questions.

We'd love to hear how the new scores feel, so please let us know what you think.

We've redesigned GoodDate!

We wanted something that is clear and easy to read. Something that communicates "hey, this is a serious dating site." The redesign is more about colors and contrast, but we have bigger and better changes coming soon!

Some comments we've gotten on the old site:

• "It looks like a credit card company."
• "Obviously made by one guy."
• "Could you make it even harder to read?"

If you have any feedback on this, please let us know what you think!

You can now take a short selfie check from your account page to show you're a real, live person.

Soon, you'll need to pass it or be ID Verified to send likes and to appear in other people's matches. You'll still be able to browse, and your existing likes and conversations won't be affected. If you're already ID Verified, you don't need to do anything.

Fake profiles are one of the biggest problems in online dating, and this helps keep GoodDate for real people. As always, let us know what you think.

Thanks to your feedback, every question now has a Skip button next to Save, which moves you along to the next one.

Skips aren't permanent. They only last as long as you're working through the page, so anything you skipped comes back the next time you visit questions. Nothing is recorded, and a question you skip is simply left unanswered.

Remember that answering more questions leads to better matches, so skip sparingly! As always, let us know what you think.

We've increased the radius available in match filters, making it easier to discover compatible people beyond your immediate area.

We've also added more anti-spam moderation tools to help us identify and address suspicious activity more quickly. These improvements are part of our ongoing work to keep GoodDate safe.

As always, please continue to report anything suspicious and send us your feedback!

We've added a question about cheating and infidelity, which is a common dealbreaker for many people. While it's a tough topic, we believe it's ultimately important for compatbility.

We're also actively working on performance improvements behind the scenes to make the site faster and more responsive.

As always, please keep the feedback coming!

We've implemented a few new measures to help combat the scam traffic but they should not be invasive to real users.

We've had an influx of scam traffic recently and had significant concern that in the age of AI they'd be more capable and better skilled, but it seems this is fortunately not the case so far.

As always, feel free to report any suspicious activity!

We're working to make our messaging clearer: GoodDate is designed for thoughtful matchmaking and long-term compatibility, not one-night stands.

That means continuing to prioritize values-based matching, safety, and meaningful conversations over swipe volume or engagement tricks.

Thank you for the feedback that helped us tighten this language across the site. Please keep it coming!

It's been exciting to see a surge of new users recently! We're thrilled that more people are discovering GoodDate and joining our community.

As more people join, we hope to see even more meaningful connections being made. We encourage everyone to explore the platform, answer questions, and keep the excellent feedback coming!

Update on 501(c)3 status, the IRS database has been updated and you can see our details on our candid.org page.

We're excited to announce that we're now officially a 501(c)3 public charity organization! If we decide to accept donations in the future, they will be tax-deductible under Section 170 of the Internal Revenue Code.

While this doesn't change anything about the platform today, in the future we hope to enable free relationship education and counseling.

When the IRS database is updated we'll add a verification link and 501(c)3 info.

Our users have expressed interest in music as an important part of their lives and relationships so we've added a few new questions specific to that.

We've again increased the minimum required answer count to see matches. This helps improve match quality and filter out folks just looking to match with as many people as possible. We'll continue to do this as we add more questions.

We've updated our ID verification process! We're now using a fully-compliant third-party for ID, face matching, and liveness checks (Didit). This supports more document types and the process is much more familiar and user-friendly.

Don't worry, we automatically issue deletion requests to the third-party after verification is complete. Read more about Didit's compliance and security. Please contact support if you run into any issues with this new process!

Our ID verification process is getting a big upgrade. Currently we have to be very picky about image quality and the types of IDs we accept. In the future, we'll be using a third-party service with liveness, image analysis, and global database checks to make the process smoother and more reliable.

Apologies if you've had trouble with verification in the past. This new system should help a lot!

As part of our ongoing efforts to reach more people who are looking for genuine connections, we recently had the opportunity to be interviewed by The Marketing Folks. This is our first-ever interview that covers the why and how of GoodDate.

You can read the full interview here. We think it went well for a first interview!

In other news, we've added better scammer detection and several new questions!

We've slightly increased the match cutoff to help reduce the odds of low compatibility matches triggering notifications. This should help improve the overall experience.

We've also updated our Terms of Service to clarify a few points around user conduct and content moderation. The main changes are around sharing external contact information in your public profile (e.g Telegram, OF, etc) that is often used by scammers. While scammers are already unlikely to find much value on GoodDate due to our compatibility focus, we want to make it clear that sharing such information is not allowed.

As always, please don't hesitate to contact us if you have any questions or feedback!

Your photos are now blurred to anyone that you have not liked. The idea is to provide a bit more privacy and focus on what makes GoodDate different: compatibility.

Since studies show that people often make snap judgments based on photos alone — with things like lighting playing a big role — we want to ensure they're part of the bigger picture. After all, a photo is just one small part of who you are! We call it semi-blind dating.

We've heard the feedback that the point system used for compatibility was a bit confusing, so we've replaced it with a much more obvious percentage match score.

The number one expressed concern with online dating is safety.

To address this we've implemented an optional Safe Verification step which confirms a user's age, ID, and runs some background checks.

A verified user will have their face photo and confirmed age shown on their profile. Read more about Safe Verification.

We're continuing to research how GoodDate can provide value.

We've met with several consultants to better understand both what people want and how to reach them. One insight we've found is that many of you tend to prioritize safety, as do we, but we haven't communicated that well. There's a new section in the FAQs that explains exactly how we think GoodDate helps with safety, but we'd love to hear your thoughts on this important topic.

So right now we're focusing on our messaging.

We've added a couple of questions that touch on polyamory and intimacy power dynamics. These have been suggested as important so please keep the feedback coming!

It's about time we admit that we don't know anything about advertising and so have decided to look for professional help to get a general idea of strategies. This process starts with a consultation and we hope to have a plan in place soon. The more people using the platform, the more likely you are to find that special someone so this is of utmost importance to us!

We've added a few new questions that our users think are important to know, and we agree. Have an idea? We'd love to hear it!

Advertising has proved to be quite a challenge, requiring approval from Google to begin an advertising campaign in the dating space. Fortunately we've been certified, which requires a manual login flow for the reviewers and that we follow their dating site rules. Now we are working on getting our campaign out the door!

We're excited to announce that GoodDate is preparing for its official launch!

In the coming days we'll be adding new questions and features while working on our first official advertising!

It's exciting to see people finding our platform without any advertising and as always we appreciate any and all feedback.

We've made GoodDate available to the public in beta!

Any feedback or comments are greatly appreciated. If you feel like sharing your experience so far, let us know here.