Overview

Do you want to sign up to a herpes dating site that is entirely free to use? H-Date is free for everyone, and while there are not a lot of bells and whistles to this STD dating and support site. It does offer you an opportunity to find other people living with STDs and potentially find a love match or other type of relationship. H-Date is growing in popularity, and with the free-factor, it has the potential to get a lot of new members in the future. Sign up is very easy and quick, and the site covers a ton of important questions to let your potential matches know what you are all about. And, while H-Date says they are for herpes or HPV singles, they cater to anyone who is living with an STD, who wants to meet someone.

Sign Up Process

The signup process is a little different. It is done through a series of steps. First, you pick your country, and then you select your state or province. Then you fill out the rest of your basic information, such as your username, password, what STD you are living with, what type of person you are looking for (couples included), your email address and your zip/postal code.

Once you enter the member’s area, you will have to confirm your email address to activate your account before you can do anything else.

Once you activate your account, you are taken to a page where you can fill in some more information to let other members know a little bit more about yourself. You then have the option to choose languages that you speak, plus a bunch of personality questions to let people learn more about your habits and interests.

Pricing

It is one aspect that I was completely surprised about. H-Date boasts itself as being a completely free herpes dating site that is dedicated to bringing people together for friendship and love. H-Date offers the platform for thousands of singles to connect without a fee, and this is almost unheard of for a dating site, and it gives you the ability to connect with other people no matter what your budget currently looks like.

Features

One feature is their poll section. Polls have always been an excellent way to see where you fit in with other people and, also, find out some interesting facts about where other people stand on certain issues. The polls are related to H-Date, as well as to STD questions, such as “What type of STD do you have?” and “Have you hidden the fact that you have an STD from someone you had sex with?”.

One thing to note is that under each person’s profile, you have the ability to send them a message, show interest, check out their profile, or block them. If you choose to show interest, it is not like other dating sites where you have the option to pick a one-liner along with your interest message. Instead, a message is automatically sent to the member. Therefore, don’t play around with the buttons. Only show interest to people that you are genuinely interested in; otherwise, you could produce some hurt feelings on the site unintentionally. As an extra note, you can go into ‘My interest list’ on the left-hand side of the member’s area and delete any accidental interest notifications sent; however, by that point, there is a chance that they have already seen it and are considering your profile as an interest for themselves.

H-Date is entirely free. So, while there are not a lot of features to write home about, you cannot complain about the value you are receiving because it is a 100% free service to use as of now.

Safety and Privacy

H-Date does not review their members for your safety. There is no screening process, and no verification is done on the site. Therefore, you do have to use your safety precautions to avoid meeting any scammers who are preying on other people’s desire to find love. It just means keeping all personal information personal until you get to know an interested member. Moreover, if someone wants to meet you, then make sure you let your friends know where you are going, take your transportation, and meet in a very public place where you can quickly excuse yourself if you get a weird feeling about the person.

As far as privacy goes on H-Date, it is important not to disclose anything you don’t want them to know. For instance, if they send you a survey, and you do not want them to know your responses, then just refuse to take the survey. They are clear that they do not share the information collected with anyone; however, if you feel you do not want to disclose too much, that is your prerogative.

H-Date has security measures in place to protect your identity. Only their employees have access to your personal information, and they take every effort to protect you from the loss, misuse or alteration to your information.

Which STD Singles Will You Find on H-Date?

On the front page, you will see that they clearly say they are the largest herpes and HPV support site. While herpes and HPV are mentioned over and over again, H-Date is still a dating site and community for people with STDs, and you will be able to find compassionate and understanding people that you can relate to.

Furthermore, when filling out your profile, you will see that there is a selection to pick from various STDs, including Hep-C, HPV, and HIV, or a combination thereof. And, there is even the option to choose ‘none’ if you don’t have an STD. Therefore, if you have another STD that is not mentioned, and you want to sign up, there is no harm in giving it a try as they seem to support all STD members who want to sign up.

Room For Improvement

One thing that the site needs to improve on is it’s layout on the front page. It is hard to see what is going on and where you should look next, and that detracts from the overall enticement of the free dating site.

Furthermore, when I was trying to sign into the website initially, it would not accept my postal code, even though it was correct. Finally, I had to put in a zip code, and it let me continue to the site. That is something they will need to fix if they want to match people accurately up according to a zip code or postal code.

Lastly, I think the reason they are offering a free membership is that they have ads. I’m never a fan of ads on a dating site; however, they are not a big distraction, and they do contribute to the fact that the site is completely free, so it is not a huge area that needs improvement.

The Search

The searches are pretty straightforward. There is a username search, who’s online search, basic search, location search, advanced search, and detailed search. All of these can be found under the link ‘search’ in the top menu.

You will find that the detailed search will give you the best possible results for a good match if you know exactly what you want or have strict preferences that you are looking for. Although, you may limit the results you get (one of my results turned up nothing) if you search with too many filters in place.

STD Support And News

There is some general information for Herpes and HPV on the front page, and this can give you some insight if you are new to the STDs or just have been looking for some extra information.

Inside the member’s area, you will find a section at the bottom where you can see any herpes or STD events coming up, and you can add your events. It is an excellent way to find support in your area.

Site Popularity

One time when I was on H-Date, there were only 12 people online. There may be a lot of members registered, but for a Friday night, there were not many people on.

While they say they are the world’s largest dating site and support site for herpes and HPV, I did not often see a lot of members on H-Date. There are 38,358 members registered, and this is not a significant number when it boils down to finding someone near you. That is true because they cater to everyone and not just a particular location. But, there were 214 members online at one of my visits, so that has the potential to find someone to talk to and get to know.

Design

You will notice that the design of the home page is quite messy. There is text everywhere, the colors do not blend well together, and the text can be hard to see against the dark background. And, it is not laid out in a fashion that is easy to read. In other words, your eyes are drawn everywhere when you first land on H-Date, and this can detract from the overall user experience.

Customer Service

When you click on the ‘help’ button in the top menu bar, you will find an extensive FAQ section. Pretty much anything you could think of asking will be found in this section. However, if you do not locate the answer to your question, then just click on ‘E-mail support’ in the left sidebar on the top, and you will be taken to a contact form.

Ease Of Use

One thing I noticed during the review was that the member’s area of H-Date was very easy to use. Despite the messy homepage, you can easily navigate through the member’s area using the menu bars on top or the left-hand side. You can even go into the ‘my account’ section and turn off notifications that you want to turn off, which makes the site less distracting and even easier to use.

Verdict

H-Date is not only a site like its homepage suggests. It caters to anyone who is single with an STD, or even anyone who is single without an STD.

The fact that H-Date is a free dating site makes me believe that there will be a lot of interest in this site as it ages. More and more people will want to check it out, sign up, and participate, which will improve member’s odds for finding a date.

Current features allow members to search for someone of interest, learn more about members of H-Date and contact members that are interesting through the use of a quick notification or even an email, that is what the core of any dating site should be. So I recommend that everyone sign up and try their luck with it. H-Date can only grow from here, and if you are on it while it grows, your potential to find that perfect match increases too!

H-Date has been sold by the original owner. Now, this site is not free. (Dec. 2016)