How to use plenty of fish (the beginner’s guide)

Plenty of fish is a very popular dating site. Plenty of fish is also known as POF. Plenty of fish was launched in 2003 and now it has more than 150 million active users. POF has more than 4 million active users per day. With this huge database, you can find your date-mate on plenty of fish easily, but before that, you should know how to use plenty of fish. Here I am writing about how to use plenty of fish effectively.

How to use plenty of fish

Like other dating sites, to start using POF you should have to do signup for plenty of fish. Don’t be a worry, registering on plenty of fish is free.

Create a POF account

1. Open any web browser on your pc or laptop.
2. Now type  POF.com or PlentyOfFish.com in the address bar. Both will lead you to the official site of POF.
3. You can start creating your account by clicking on the Register button located in the upper right corner of the POF homepage.
4. Now Plenty of Fish Signup pages with different forms will be shown back to you. Here you have to enter the username for your POF account which will be used later to login pof.com. Also provide your Emails, Password, Gender, Date of birth, Country, and other information that will be needed for POF account creation.
5. After filling in all the details, tick the box saying “I agree to terms and conditions” to proceed with further steps.
6. In order to verify you are a real human creating account, enter the captcha carefully. In case, you typed the wrong captcha don’t be worry you will be given chances to re-enter the captcha.
7. Click register and you will get a verification email. Always make sure you enter the correct email so that verification mail is delivered to the right address.
8. Login to the mail provider you entered and click on the verification link. Check your spam folder in case you didn’t get mail in a few minutes. After verifying your POF account it will be created successfully.

Once you successfully created your POF account then you are an official member of POF. You can start using different POF features, but before that put some effort to make your profile attractive.

Edit & set POF profile

The best way to attract other POF users is to make your own POF profile complete and attractive.  Your profile info will give an idea of what you’re about to other users.

The basics

First, complete all basics about yourself which are on the edit profile form. The basics info include: You have to describe your personality in one word. And that one word you have to choose from a drop-down list provided by POF. After that, you have to select a seeking option. You have a male or female option to select. Then select I am looking for the option. Here you get four options like hangout,  friends, dating, or long term. Select any one option as per your interest. POF also asks for your intent and it shows how serious you are about your POF profile. You have to add your first name in POF basic info. Don’t be worry about that because POF gives you options of hiding or showing your first name on your POF profile. Now fill in your native city, union territory, and postal code. You have to mention your previous relationship. Mention the longest relationship span from the longest relationship drop-down menu.

About You

After basics information, you have to fill in ‘about you’ information. Of course, all options are provided by POF itself. In about your info, you have to mention your marital status. You have to mention your physical details such as height, body type, hair color, etc. also provide your ethnicity and religion. after that fill up your profession and your income level, education.

Also, fill up about how many children your father has. You have to fill your smoking as well as drinking habit. If you can car mention that. If you have children or pets mentions that.  Mention your second language and how much ambitious you are. Fill in all details carefully and stay honest while filling in the information about you. Because it will reflect on your profile and it will attract other POF users.  Once you have done with your information then you have to fill up your description.

Your Description

In your POF description, you have to write a headline and description.

Headline

The headline should be catchy and attractive. Your POF headline will appear on various POF website pages. So make sure your POF profile headline makes a positive impact. You can keep jokes, song lyrics, or questions as your headline. Try to avoid woeful sounding headline.

If you can make someone curious, laugh, or challenge them to learn something more about you. Once you did anyone of this in your headline, you’ll increase the chance of your match will click on your profile. And maybe they will message you.  For some headline inspiration, visit: http://www.edatingdoc.com/online-dating-headlines/

Description

Your POF profile description is nothing but writing about yourself. You can’t skip the description because it is mandatory to write your POF profile description.

Try to keep the description short and clear. Mention who you are, what you like to do, and what you’re looking for in a future partner. As per expert advice, 3 short paragraphs description is handier. and it will increase the chances of getting a potential match. Be positive and highlight the important things in your description.

Conversation starters

Conversation starters are another thing that you can set along with your POF profile. Conversation starters are optional so you can skip them if you don’t want to set it.

Interests

You can mention your interests in the POF profile. You can add multiple interests. While telling your interests to be honest. Don’t lie and don’t add fake interest. this is the last part of your POF profile.

Essential information about POF profile

Your POF username, your birthdate, ethnicity, email, gender, and country is essential information for creating your POF profile. You can change your birthday and gender within 2 weeks of signing up. After that, it can’t be changed.

Change your POF account password

You can change your POF account password on an edit profile page. At the end of the edit profile page, there is a change password option. Type old password in the old password box. Enter your new password in the new password box. Retype your new password in the new password again. Click on the update password. thus you can change your POF password. Keep in mind that you can keep your POF account password up to 20 characters.

View Your Profile

Once you set your POF profile, you can see how it looks to other POF users. Simply click on the ‘My Profile’ option which is located on the left-hand side of the edit profile option. Or you can view your POF profile once you set your POF profile by clicking on the ‘View Your Profile’ option.

Mail Settings

To set your POF ail settings click on edit my profile. Here on this page, you will find the ‘Mail Settings’ link, which is the left-hand side of upload images. You can limit who is allowed to contact you on POF by adjusting your mail settings.

• You can select male or female. It means if you want to receive the message from only a female you can choose a female. If you want to receive mail from a male then select male. If you want to receive mail from both you can select anyone.
• Like gender, you can restrict the country too. If you want to receive a message from a particular country. Then you can select that country.  Or if don’t bother from messages from other countries rather than your home country. Then you can select ‘Any’.
• You can also set lenght of your first POF message.  You can set lenght of message: ‘Any Size’, ’50+ characters’, ‘100+ characters’, ‘200+ characters’ or ‘300+ characters’.
• The best thing is that you can set the age of the POF message sender.  If you want to receive a message from a particular age group then you have to set age group restrictions. And if age is not barred for you then you can set it to ‘Any Age’ and receive messages from all age groups members.
• You can maintain settings of ‘Allow a user to see that you viewed their profile’. It means when you visit someone’s POF profile, that user gets notified. If your ‘Allow a user to see that I viewed their profile’. The option is ‘Yes”.  If you want to visit anonymously POF users profile, then set this option to ‘No’.
• On this mail setting page, you can see the list of you have blocked. Simply click on ‘To see the list of users you’ve blocked, Click here.’
• You have the option to set your time zone.
• You can set ‘Yes’ or ‘No’ in mail settings for many questions. for example, Send me an email when I have mail at POF select yes or no option for this question.
• Finally hit the ‘Update Mail Settings button. It will save your entire mail settings.

Upload Images

You can upload 8 images with your free POF subscription. If you want to upload more images you have to upgrade your POF account. You can upload 16 images with your premium POF account.

You can upload images from your computer or laptop. Or you have the option to upload images from your Facebook or Instagram account to your POF account.

Keep in mind that, your face MUST be clearly visible in your MAIN IMAGE. All images MUST contain you. Images of cartoons, celebrities, bare

torsos, and joke pictures will be deleted from POF. You can keep images private and share it with people in messages.

My Matches & Ultra Match

In the “My Matches” section you can find your POF matches. POF will show you matches according to your profile information and locations. You can also filter your matches using the ‘Refine Matches’ option. Set age, distance, and all users or users you have not contacted and click on the ‘Refine Matches’ button. And it will give you matches as per your input. If you want to see matches from another algorithm then you can try the ‘Ultra Match’ option.   Where people are ranked by compatibility and you can help POF learn your preferences by sending someone who interests you a message or excluding someone you know isn’t right for you.

Will Respond 

Will respond is another amazing POF feature. On the will respond page you will find people which are more likely to respond to your messages. Here you can start conversations.

Sent Messages

In this section, you will find your sent messages to other POF users. Here you will find when that user was online. POF tells you your message is read or not by that person. 

In the sent message you will find Messages, Sent Messages, Contact History, Top Prospects. 

Messages

The messages section will suggest you different POF profiles according to your interest. If you like any profile you can send a quick message to that person. 

Contact History

Here you will get your all contact history.  It means here POF provides you all profiles with the first contact date with the person. Here you have the option to send a message to your contacted user. The best part of contact history is you can sort your contact history.  You have a choice to select you made the first contact or they made the first contact. You can also select gender and set age range and refine your POF contact history search.

Top Prospects

The top prospects list is your best matches, and you’ve already been in contact with them. So keep the conversation going and find your date-mate.

Favorites 

Favorites are a section where you can find your favorites contacts, who favorited you, and favorites updates.

My Favorites

Here you can find a list of profiles that are your favorites.

Who Fav’d Me

Here you can find a list of profiles of people who favorited you. It means you are on their favorite list.

Favorites Updates

In this section, you will find the latest updates from users on your favorites list to update their profiles. The latest 36 images uploaded by people on your favorites list. 

New Users

The new user’s tab is for the last 20 signups matching your search criteria in your city.  Here you have an option to refine the search using the age range. You can search for new matches according to your age range.

My City

My city tab is for finding matches from your city. In short, you can find People matching your search criteria in your city. You can also filter searches using the refine search button. Set age range and choose any one option from all users, users I have not contacted or users I have contacted. You can see their online status or visit their profile for contact. 

Viewed Me

In viewed me tab you can find out who viewed your POF profile. You have “Users Who Viewed Me” and “Users Who I Viewed” options. It means you can find out users who you viewed. 

POF Inbox

 POF inbox is a place where you will find your POF co your POF conversations.  In messages, you will get your POF messages sent by other POF users. And other sections of the POF inbox are already mentioned in this post.

 Meet Me

Meet me is the best option provided by plenty of fish dating sites. Here POF will give you matching suggestions and it will ask you a question, “Want to Meet Her/Him?” You have to choose one option from four options, No, May Be, Super Yes, and Yes. The respective user will get notified and if she/he accepts your meet me request then you can start conversations with that person.

If other users want to meet you and they used to meet me feature. You will get a notification from users who want to meet you. In the users you want to meet tab you will find all users who you liked using the meet me feature. 

If there is a mutual match, means users who want to meet and you want to meet. You will find it in the “Mutual Meet me” tab.

Rate Images: In the meet me section you will also get the rate images tab. Using this tab you rate other POF user’s images. It is to make POF experience better and to improve website trust. You can delete offensive images and give suggestions on images if you think images need more editing or cropping.  

POF Search

Plenty of fish has two main search options. One is a basic search and advanced search. 

POF Basic Search 

The basic search is probably the most utilized search on Plenty Of Fish. Basic search sort just provides you with the most widely recognized search types. You can search for types who are inside a particular scope of your postal division for instance. The POF basic search is convenient in the event that you are hoping to browse members.

POF Advanced Search

The POF Advanced search on Plenty Of Fish permits you to truly contract down the outcomes. You can discover online dating profiles by various pursuit filters, for example, height ranges, age, race, hair shading,  and so forth. Utilizing advanced search of POF is minimal all the longer task, You have to give some more insights about yourself.

POF Username Search

POF username search is a very simple search to do. For searching, the username goes to http://www.pof.com/basicusersearch.aspx. And enter a username of the profile you are looking for. the username is connected with an account on the dating site, their profile will show in the search results.

Plenty of fish search without registering

• Go to https://www.pof.com/basicusersearch.aspx
• Enter a username or the name of a person in the “Username” search box located at the top center of your screen.
• Click on “Find User”.
• Now you’ll get a list of all users under that name or username, to browse one of those profiles simply click on the users’ profile picture on the left and you’ll be able to see some of the information and content they’ve posted on the site, such as about, city, interests, and additional photos as well.

Online 

POF online tab will show you, online members. It also shows recent online member profiles. It is a very useful tab because you can find here who is online and it’s better to make contact.

Chemistry

POF chemistry is a vital reason behind plenty of success. Due to the chemistry test, POF understands your interests and what are you are looking for. The test also helps to understand the psychological mindset of the user.

The following are the chemistry tests of POF:

• Chemistry Assessment
• Needs Assessment
• Psychological Assessment
• Keeper Test
• Sex Test

All chemistry testes details will update later.

Upgrade/ POF Paid version

If you want to reveal more features of Plenty Of Fish then you can upgrade your POF account to a paid version with few bucks. As an upgraded member, you will show up FIRST on Meet Me. This means that new users will let you know if they are attracted to you or not within minutes of signup! 

POF Paid Plans

• $6.78/mo (12-month plan $81.40)
• $8.50/mo (6-month plan $51.00)
• $12.90/mo (3-month plan $38.70)

You can do the payment via credit card or via PayPal.

POF Upgraded Features

• Show up first on Meet Me!
• Unlock every user’s Extended Profile.
• See if your emails were read or deleted.
• Experience POF ad-free.
• Find out the date and time someone viewed your profile.
• The massive increase in emails.
• The number of people viewing your profile triples.
• Stand out in all searches.
• Send three gifts per day.
• This upgrade more than doubles your chances of meeting someone.
• Upload 16 images.

These are the features that will get you if you upgrade your POF account. You can also use POF on your mobile phone. Just download POF Android or POF iOS app. If you want to know more about POF apps let me know via comments and I will write a guide on POF mobile apps too. I hope this how to use Plenty of fish guide will help you to understand POF. and if you are facing any issue using POF let me know via comment.