The Surprising Truth About Ugly Websites
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The Case of Plenty of Fish
I was struck by an example of just how effective ugly websites
can be this past week as I was browsing through some web related
news. I stumbled across the story of Plenty of
Fish. This is a very plain looking website that offers a free
online dating service much like Match.com (but without the
subscription fee). There was nothing specifically impressive
about the website that stood out to me, in fact the site was
actually rather ugly.
What caused me (and I am sure several other people) to take a
second look at the website was its reported earnings. It is
reported that this website brings in over $10,000 from Adsense –
in one day. Yes, you did read that correctly. For those
of you counting, that is $300,000 per month and nearly one
million dollars in just three months.
The example of Plenty of Fish lead me to consider how an ugly
website could be so successful. As I looked around, I suddenly
realized that this was not the only successful ugly website. Ebay
is unbelievably ugly, Craigslist has never won an award for
innovative design, and IMDB has never even bothered to format
their text out of the default Times New Roman. What is it about
ugly websites that makes them so successful?
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