How does the Tinder algorithm work? Is there some logic to increase matches, or is it random?

Hey Tinderos and Tinderellas! I’m a 26 year old woman who’s been on tinder for 4 years and it’s been pretty awesome for me. So awesome in fact, that I research and blog about it.

How the tinder algorithm works

Tinder isn’t like Instagram, where you just need to upload some bullshit images of your breakfast and buy some bots. Nope, the rules for your visibility are more complex.

• Tinder calculates how attractive you are by using an ELO score. What the hell is an ELO score? It’s this rating system thing. Here, read THIS.
• So it doesn’t tell you how likely you are to be right-swiped, but ranks you in terms of likability. This is probably linked to it’s smart pictures feature.
• The ELO score is made up of the % of people that like you as a whole, the % of matches you get and what the ELO scores of those people are.
• Your ELO score determines who will be shown your profile; so if you’re a 7, you won’t be shown to 4’s but neither will you be shown to a 9. Harsh but true.
• You can change your ELO score by modifying your profile.
• You will NEVER EVER know your ELO score (because that’s just too harsh).
• If you are too picky, you won’t get a chance to boost your ELO and it will harm your score. A right swipe quota of between 30-70% works best.
• Conversely, if you are over-zealous and swipe right on everyone(not looking at any of you on here), then tinder won’t show you to as many people.
• Being active – so often being online is a good thing.
• Sending tinder messages to matches is also good.

Find out more HERE and HERE.

How to hack tinder in order to boost your ELO score

Contrary to popular belief, always swiping EVERYONE to the right is NOT going to help. You are actually damaging your ELO. This is why a lot of tinder plus users are experiencing lower rates of success; they are using the unlimited swipes feature too much and it’s hurting their rating.

So what CAN you do?

Well, the most reliable method of guaranteeing tinder success is the good old-fashioned way of having a kickass profile that stands out from the other 50 million users out there. “Yeah but that’s easier said than done”. Maybe, but it’s not impossible. Sorting out the pictures and the bio is absolutely crucial.

Seriously, you have the sum total of 2 blurry tinder pictures of you in your bedroom, then you’re not going to get very far unless you’re Ryan Gosling and your room is the Trump Tower.

Tinder Pictures: How To Make Me Swipe Right

1. Use All Six Tinder Pictures

If I see a profile with 1 or 2 pictures I will 95% swipe left. Would you book an Airbnb in a place you’ve never been that has just one picture? No. Research doneshows that a male profile with only one real tinder picture is just 0.27% likely to get a match from a woman. Why? Because it’s boring at best and seedy at worst. Be that dude who has six kickass tinder pictures and scoops in all the matches that the other 33.9 million tinder guys around the globe miss out on. Tinder has given you fucking real estate bro. Milk it and use all six pics.

This dude below does that and shows how interesting he is with the variety. Yeah and he’s a model I know, but focus on how each picture is different and can be used as a future topic of conversation. For more ideas on how to get variety, check THIS post out.

2. Don’t Underestimate The Importance Of Self-Care

Mehrabium and Blum (1997) wanted to find out what physical features were most attractive to men and women. They asked 117 University students to rate pictures of the opposite sex and measured emotional responses. The weird thing was, women were not all about height or body type; the features we found most attractive fell under ‘self-care’; so the guy with the great haircut, posture and clothes that fit well has an advantage, because he’s made an effort –and you should too. This is great news, whether you’re 6’1″ or 5’6″; you can make yourself hotter just by being proactive. Esquire has some good grooming tips and you can take some style inspo from Ask Men.

Find out 10 more tinder picture tips, as well as 17 pictures NOT to have in THIS ARTICLE

Tinder Bios: How To Make Me Swipe Right

Did you know that 30% of men don’t have a tinder bio and yet, your chances of getting a match increase fourfold if you have a bio? And that’s just any bio. Here’s how to have a kickass bio:

1. Have a catchy first line.

Whether you’re writing an advert, a novel or a Tinder bio, one thing’s for sure – you need a standout first line. If I spend up to 77 minutes a day (shock horror) swiping, passing through countless faces a day and am then interested enough in you to tap on your picture and check out the bio, then I WANT it to catch my attention and not be like the other avalanche of idiots.

2. Show your interests.

Walking around with a hot dude that has nothing to talk about will eventually get tiresome (I said eventually). Show that you have interests you can talk about and can engage in a good convo.

Simply stating: ‘IT| tennis| wine| travel’ is kind of boring and I see it a lot. I’d like to know what you sound like (virtually, at least), so a little elaboration… Or maybe even a sentence if I’m really lucky would be nice.

3. Make it simple to read

When do you swipe? I do on the toilet, between work and Netflix mainly; I’m not looking for a dissertation, but something I can process quickly. Making a bio clear and simple to read shows you have good communication skills and can get a point across without a lot of hassle.

4. End with a Call to Action

Tinder is a marketplace and I keep emphasizing that for a goddam reason. If we look at your profile as an advert of you, then it needs to have a CTA to tell your reader what to do, i.e. swipe right. Just by telling us to swipe, you’re making us visualize and want to swipe. CTAs are crucial in marketing and we see them everywhere – here are some effective examples.

As well as the persuasive factor, we need to know that you’re interested in usand not that guy who will just talk about himself for the whole date. As your CTA, why not ask a question?

For loads more bio examples; so that you can see the format, NOT copy them (we know when you do and it spoils your tinder cred), as well as a lowdown on how to be funny and creative and just amazing in your bio, take a look at THIS article.

The current iteration of this answer is outdated. While I'm always interested in the mysteries of the inner workings of Tinder, I don't use it enough to keep this answer updated.

Currently updated November, 2015.

Important note: Tinder has admitted that they rank users. At the least, their admission validates some of what I wrote here. I'd like to think I had something to do with them coming clean ;) I Found Out My Secret Internal Tinder Rating And Now I Wish I Hadn't

Disclaimer: I have no internal knowledge about how Tinder is designed or built, everything in this answer is conjecture based on logic and my observations. Also, at this evolution of the app, there are likely to be differences with functionality between men and women. This would make logical sense, as generally men and women have different dating behaviors, and the developers would want to take advantage and account for this variation.

Since I'm a man, I can only comment on my experiences using the app as a man.

What do we know?

1. The app can only show you one person at a time, but in any given area there are thousands of people using it.
   
2. The developers do not want to show the same list of people in the same order to everyone, and so an algorithm is necessary to intelligently divide the profiles for different groups.
3. The app seems to be able to show you attractive women/men at a much higher rate then normal dating apps.
4. The app shows a different ratio of attractive people or unattractive people to different people
5. The ordering of matches has changed substantially a few times since I started using Tinder in 2013. (This is conclusive proof that there is some sort of algorithm behind who's profiles are shown, to whom, and when. )

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How matches are currently displayed:

Currently the app shuffles the deck in a very predictable way. The first 10-15 cards (it seems to be slightly random) it shows you upon signing in are of non matches. These first cards will also be significantly more attractive than the general population of tinder users as a whole. After this, if you have a high number of waiting matches, tinder will show you mostly users you've matched with with some non-matches in between. If you have a low number of matches, tinder will continue to show you non-matches, but much less attractive than the first group.

So why would tinder mostly show you attractive users upfront?

This is simple. Showing you attractive users creates the perception that meeting attractive users from Tinder is a possibility. Even though you don't match with these users, you know there are attractive users on Tinder. If the app was truly randomized, you would see mostly average users, which would skew your perception of the value of the app negatively.

Why would they make sure that your first few swipes are not matches?

The previous iteration of the app used to show you all your matches upfront. I have two theories for why this changed. The first is that I think many attractive women got to the point where everyone they swiped was a match. This is a detriment to the gamification, the feeling of chance you get when you swipe and you don't know whether it's going to be a match or not. This leads to fatigue. The second reason for this was to get you to swipe on more people. By forcing every user to swipe through 10 people before getting your matches, you're now increasing the number of likes in the network as a whole.

Attractiveness Score

This was the big element of my previous post which I still think is still relevant.

So we've established that one of the pieces of data we know is that Tinder shows you more attractive people for the first few swipes or so after logging in.

Behind the scenes it's clear that to do this they have to determine which users are most attractive. It's not like they can comb through each profile manually and determine attractiveness, so they likely use the algorithm to determine your attractiveness. You could call it an attractiveness or desirableness score, but basically it's your perceived value on the network.

How does it work then? I don't think it's as simple as having the "most likes" because that would weigh the algorithm in favor of people who have been on Tinder longer, and would favor people who like more people themselves. It could be the % of people who like you out of the number of times your picture is shown to people. However, I think this is too simplistic as well, as it doesn't mirror real life, and would lead to a regression to the mean. Different people have different standards, and thus, would rate differently. For instance a person with very low attractiveness, who's profile is shown to other people of low attractiveness, would be rated highly, similarly, a person of high attractiveness, who's profiles are shown to other people of high attractiveness, might be rated lower.

Therefore, I think Tinder values "likes" from people with a higher attractiveness rating themselves as being of higher value, than likes from people with a lower attractiveness rating. This creates a system of "voting" where users votes are weighted depending on their value to the network.

The unfortunate result of this system is that if you are more attractive, you are more likely to be shown more attractive profiles and be shown to other people with more attractive profiles. I've tested this in the past, where when I have less attractive profile pictures I am shown less attractive matches, and visa versa. Tinder has a vested interest in creating matches because that's where the value lies, and it's been studied that people tend to gravitate most to the people they consider to be on their same level of attractiveness.

How active you are determines when you are pushed to the top of the stack

This has significantly changed since I originally wrote this answer. Initially, I thought that the app would display your profile more often depending on how active you are (remember, only one profile can be shown at a time out of the stack, but there are thousands of users at any one time).  I think this is true, but I think I didn't understand all the elements involved.

When you first sign in, you are likely shown to a bunch of people who are online at the same time you are. By watching the sign in times of my matches, I can see that when I'm logged into the app and online, I'll get a bunch of matches (after a lag time of a few minutes) that were active around the same time as I was. The lag time is because tinder is showing your profile to people, so these matches need time to build up. The reasoning for doing this is clear - people who are online and active at the same time are most likely to have a conversation. Therefore, logging in frequently is in your best interest to have your profile displayed to as many people as possible and increase your matches.

Secondly, we have to deal with matches that happen while you're signed off. I'm not sure if this is a gradual scale or if there is a cutoff, but it's clear that after a certain period of time your profile will stop being shown in rotation. I've stopped using tinder for periods ranging from a month to a year, and every time I do that when I sign on I only have brand new matches (again, roughly estimated by last active time)**. I think what's possible is the longer since you've been active, the less often your profile is shown, until it's never shown anymore.  But the second you log back in, Tinder goes crazy trying to get you matches so you feel like you had a lot of matches waiting for you all along! The other piece of evidence I have for this is most profiles you are shown have a last active date of between a few minutes to a few days, and a few weeks at most. The reason for this is clear, again. If Tinder was showing people inactive profiles, less conversations would happen, reducing it's value.
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"Pickyness"

This is where it gets a little fuzzy, but I still stand by this as important. My theory is that the third part of the algorithm is swipes, or how often to you swipe out of  the number of profiles you are shown? Are you the type of person that doesn't like anyone that likes you (aka you have too high standards?) or are you the type of person that likes everyone and their mother (standards too low).

This is an important metric to have for effectiveness of tinder. If you're the person who is liking everyone, obviously Tinder doesn't want you to be top of everyone's list, so they would penalize you for that. Opposite is true with being picky, if you're too picky, you won't be shown to enough people, so they'll probably increase your odds of being shown higher in people's stacks.

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What does this mean for how you use the app?

The most important things to do in my opinion are:

1. Track how attractive the app perceives you to be. If you feel like you're being shown a lot of users that are not very attractive (irregardless of # of matches), it's likely the app things you're not very attractive as well. Improve your pictures and your profile and you should see this change.

2. Stay active. It seems like being active is the quickest way to get to the top of peoples stacks, especially while you are actively on the app. Going on the app more frequently and swiping only a few times will net you more matches than going on once a week and swiping hundreds of times.

Finally, there's the new elements of "Super Likes", but Tinder has been very transparent with how those work. If you Super Like, you're essentially jumping the rest of the parameters and getting pushed to the top of the stack.

Hopefully this helps.

• Attractiveness as judged by frequency of right swipes on you
• Spam quotient- how likely are you to be a bot? Determined by things like how many accounts you've made from the same DeviceID, etc. (more on this below)
• Newness of account
• Newness of account to a location. This one is enormous.
• Reports on you, if any exist
• Your conversational frequency once matched
• Factors based on your actual Facebook profile- how many friends you have, etc.

I’d strongly recommend reading Alex Mark’s answer on this question, which gives a pretty logical insight to the algorithm! Giving you a further step ahead explanation of how the algorithm works.

What are the two major points we all know about tinder?

1. It is a dating site.
2. The number of guys on the app is significantly higher than the number of girls. And hence only a few guy cards actually end being viewed by a girl, let alone be swiped right, unless she uses the app very often.

Why should tinder show a guy’s profile to a girl? You should either be attractive, and/or a conversationalist and importantly, not a creep. How does tinder judge you on these parameters? It ranks you.

Some obvious metrics become your age as received from your Facebook account, your interests, the number of people you’re friends with, your profession and your geographical location and needless to say, the number of matches you get on the app after a point of time. But that’s just the initial part. Tinder judges you on various parameters on how your activity is like on the app.

As a product manager of a mobile app, I’ll give you a heads up how features are built. We make use of a lot of data; we track every button that a user clicks, every page he/she views to track the user behavior towards a feature, and basis that we build a feature. We call every activity on an app an event.

So every time you swipe right or left, view a picture, write a description, remove one, an event is fired corresponding to your account. What are the prime events that form the basis for tinder to judge you to show your card to a girl?

1. If you’re crossing the cap on the number of right swipes everyday, tinder would consider that negatively against you. Why? Because you don’t have a choice, and you’re pretty much swiping right to every person you stumble upon hoping to get a match. That is just desperate for normal people, and for the algorithm.
2. What is the average amount of time that you’re spending on a card before taking a decision to swipe right or left? If you take a decent amount of time to consume a profile and then make a right/left swipe, you’d be rated higher by the algorithm. The reason is obvious, you’re making a slightly more informed decision to like a profile.
3. Continuing on point 2 - When would time be consumed in viewing a profile? When someone actually opens a card to view more pictures. A more logical explanation would actually be a funnel, which is the series of events a user performs on the app. Open the card -> Scroll down to read the description -> Spend time on the portion of the card that actually has the description of the girl. But how are points 2. and 3. justified?

• This is how the previous version of the app used to look like:

• And this is how the current version(5.3.3) looks like:

• Noticed the difference apart from the super like feature? In the previous version of the app, you would see cards stacked one after the other, while now you get to see one card at a time. In the previous version, a user can have a tendency to swipe quicker since he subconsciously knows there are more cards coming his way. But now that he only sees one card at a time, he spends more time on that card, subconsciously thinking there aren’t too many left. (Despite the fact that the number of cards probably coming his way is still the same)

4. Writing a description on the app, highly rated by the algorithm. The algorithm I’ve observed parses the sentences you’ve written and picks up meaningful words called ‘stop words’, and shows your card to people who’ve written same/synonymous stop words. This, needless to say results in more meaningful conversations.

5. If you uninstall the app after a good amount of time, and reinstall it after a few days, it is very likely that you will have a match or two. Tinder shows your card to a few people and gets you matched immediately after you uninstall. Reason? It wants to hold you back, and make you feel there is a chance of finding someone. It basically wants you to stay, like every other app does.

6. Are you a conversationalist? The algorithm takes this as a significant factor to show your card. It counts so basis the average number of ‘message send’ events that are triggered from your end, and your match’s end. This indicates to the algorithm that you’re someone who can make your match spend more time on the app.

7. With the recent launch of the Tinder social, if you go out with a female companion who is a Facebook friend, and she replies to your message on the app, your attractiveness score goes significantly higher. Reason - you have female friends who know you, and who is okay and open with talking to you on a dating app.

As far as the girls are concerned, you don’t get to see a major chunk of the guys that swipe right to your card. Feel cheated right? But there’s a pretty legit reason to it. If a girl gets a match on every right swipe right she makes, it would make her believe that the app has a bunch of creeps on it, and basically kills the suspense factor for the girl, and hence gamification on the app. Hence, tinder makes sure girls get to see the guys, who basis the algorithm can have the most meaningful conversation/date with them.

I’d love to hear from you guys on more points that you think are incorporated in the algorithm!

There are a couple of factors that can increase your matches, but first we have to understand how the algorithm works (which only the people at Tinder will ever know for 100% fact, this is purely based on my own research and observations).

The single biggest factor in how often you show up to people is how new your profile is.

See, Tinder sold out and now all they care about is money. Tinder used to be awesome in that it was pretty balanced in who it would show your profile too. New people got a slight boost but it wasn’t anything major, it used to be all about your ELO score (more on that in a minute).

Not the case anymore.

Tinder is like a video game, they need you to get hooked and hooked FAST! How do they do it? They make things easier for you in the beginning and then ramp up the difficulty later on.

In video games, it’s super easy to level up from level 1 to 2 and then so on. But then it begins to take more time to level up.

Same deal with Tinder matches. When your profile is brand spanking new you’re at level 1. You’re popular because you’re new, you’re the new kid on the block and everybody is curious about you!

Once you get to a little over a week old though? You’re yesterday’s news and Tinder wants your money.

So they start choking your profile a little bit, and then a little bit more. When you first get on the app, maybe you score a quick 10 matches in the first day. Then on the second day you get 9, then on the third day you get 5 and so on. After a month you’re lucky to get a single match a week!

Unless, of course, you pay for it, which I don’t recommend. Yes, the boosts do work but not nearly as much as just simply deleting your profile and starting over does. I’ve tested it, and I tested it with my older photos so I would have a solid comparison.

Tinder boosts look something like this:

Got the same number of 10 matches a day for the first few days and let my profile ride out until a month was over. Then on the second month I paid for a few boosts and used them at different parts of the day. During the most popular time I got 8 new matches, which is 2 less than what I could have gotten for free with only a time investment of a minute or two.

You’re better off deleting your profile and then starting over once a month. You’ll get more matches that way, which means more dates and more women in your life. But only if your pictures are good because it won’t help if they suck and the people that do see your profile swipe left.

Enter, the ELO score.

The ELO score is, essentially, how hot Tinder thinks you are based on how often you swipe left/right and how often people swipe left/right on you.

The better your pictures, the more you get swiped right on. The more you get swiped right on the hotter Tinder thinks you are and will therefore show your profile to more people simply because it thinks you’re hot.

In order to get your ELO score up you’ll need work on your pictures first. That’s the second piece of the puzzle.