We all know that the Internet is really good at scraping data, and data leads to statistics. So it was inevitable that someone would come up with online dating tips based on, well, online dating statistics. Here are our top 7 online dating tips based on online dating statistics.

Of course, we talk about online dating a great bit here. One of our more serious articles is how to detect an online dating scammer. But we also have talked about practical online dating things, such as the best way to search a dating site and even how to create paragraphs on Match.com. (Although interestingly, one of our most popular online dating articles is an explanation of the term “enemy” on OKCupid.)

But Amy Webb, CEO of [destination content has been removed at other end :~( ], has taken analysis of online dating to a whole new level, and indeed, a whole new forum, as you can see from her TED Talk, How I Hacked Online Dating:

While Webb offers a wealth of information in her talk, based on her own exhaustive research and experimentation, not everybody has nearly 20 minutes to watch an Internet video, so here are what we consider the top 7 online dating tips distilled from her talk:

1. Keep your profile, and your messages, relatively short, always upbeat, and don’t reveal too much about yourself before meeting – including all the great things about who you are and what you’ve done.

2. Choose your photos with care, making sure that you are in them, and the main focus (not your pets, pretty scenery, etc.), and make sure most of them focus on your upper body in general, and your face in particular.

3. Be careful when talking about your ‘likes’ or ‘favorites’. Sites like OKCupid have a place in your profile to list your favorite books, movies, etc.; it may be better in those places to talk generally about what you like, without getting too specific. For example, list “comedies” as a favorite type of movie, but don’t list “Animal House”.

4. Also take care when writing something that usually requires hearing the inflection in your voice, or seeing your facial gestures, to convey the tone. For example, trying to be funny online; things that would sound hysterically funny in person may fail to convey that it is humor online – or worse, may come across as insensitive or offensive.

5. Be careful when trying to be ‘flirty’ online. This goes along with the last tip: things that may seem sweet or attentive when in person can come across the wrong way, overly-strident or, worse, creepy, online.

These last two tips are, surprisingly, right in keeping with The Rules. Apparently those ladies know what they are talking about:

6. Avoid sending too many message, in too short a period of time, or at off-hours (the last thing you want a prospective date to think is “Doesn’t he ever sleep??”)

And

7. Unless someone is messaging you through a system where they can see that you are online at the same time, don’t respond immediately, and, in fact, wait a full day before replying to email, or mail-type messages. Does this seem like game-playing to you? It feels that way to us, and yet time and again, those who have tested these things say to not reply too fast. You want people to know that you have better things to do, and are not sitting around waiting by the inbox.

You can get Amy Webb’s book, Data, A Love Story: How I Cracked the Online Dating Code to Meet My Match, on Amazon.