How does the Tinder matching algorithm work?
Tinder doesn’t just show profiles at random.
Beyond the basics of location and age, there are lots of factors that determine who Tinder shows your profile to, how often it’s shown, etc.
The 3 Main Elements
To paint in broad strokes, here are the 3 most important factors that the Tinder algorithm takes into consideration when deciding the order of the swiping stack.
#1 Activity
How active are you on the app? Do you swipe a little bit every day or once in a blue moon?
If you use Tinder every day, the Tinder algorithm will show people your profile more often. Message every person that you match with, if you can, and you’ll be shown to other active users who regularly send and respond to messages.
Just be careful not to overdo it with the swiping: if you swipe 2,000 in an hour, Tinder will temporarily lock your account with a message saying to “Check back later for new people.” You’ll also get docked by the Tinder algorithm, resulting in your profile being shown less.
#2 Pickiness
To be shown more, you want Tinder to classify you as a choosy dater.
In this way, Tinder penalizes people who swipe right on every profile they see.
#3 Desirability
Tinder ranks its users internally by desirability (something they call an “ELO score”).
When you first sign up for Tinder, your desirability score is set pretty high, and your profile is shown to a lot of people.
As your profile gets swiped on, your non-newbie desirability score takes shape.
If a lot of people are swiping right on you — and especially if the people swiping right on you have high desirability scores themselves — you’ll get a high desirability score. A high desirability score means you’ll be shown more often and especially to other high-desirability people.
How to raise your desirability score?
If you feel like you’re seeing undesirable people in your swiping deck, chances are Tinder has ranked you as low desirability.
But you can change your desirability score by changing your profile pictures. It’s really that simple.
No, this isn’t as simple as being ugly or good-looking. Most people — guys especially — use Tinder pictures of themselves that are far less attractive than they really are.
Stop wasting your Tinder matches and hurting your desirability score with a bad profile. Instead, try testing your Tinder pics on Photofeeler.
Choosing your pics this way has been known to increase Tinder matches by 3-5x (200-400%).
