April 1, 2006; Page P4

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efforts to ensure that matches last. EHarmony.com is opening a new “relationship lab” this summer where some couples who met through the site will be monitored for at least five years to see how the marriages fare. In an initiative dubbed “Project Moses” internally, JDate.com, a Jewish singles site, is contracting a dating coach to train customer-service representatives in relationship counseling for couples who call in. True.com pitches a compatibility test (patent pending) that it says follows standards set by the American Psychological Association; one aim is to reduce divorce.

The emphasis on marriage and marriage sustenance is what these sites say they need to do to continue to expand their business. After double- and triple-digit growth in some recent years, spending on online dating rose by just 7% last year, according to a report by the Online Publishers Association, a trade group. The report shows that for the first time since 2002, music and video downloads surpassed online dating as a top revenue-maker on the Web. (Adult entertainment probably trumps them all, according to some market researchers, though figures are difficult to track.) A recent survey by Jupiter Research says serious daters—those seeking long-term commitments—are 63% more likely to pay for online dating than other daters. Such statistics are one reason the sites are taking pains to demonstrate successful track records at the altar.

The quest by dating Web sites to keep passion alive is all the more urgent because demographic statistics would suggest that the first wave of divorces among online daters is just now beginning. The median length of a first marriage that ends in divorce is eight years, according to a Census Bureau survey released last year. Online dating took off in 1995, with Match.com celebrating its 150th wedding two years later. By 2002, this style of dating had become firmly entrenched in the cultural mainstream.

Touting marriage results is now a major part of many sites' business strategies. Match boasts “twice as many marriages as any other site in the world” on its home page, a claim based on last year's survey of 4,800 people on Weddingchannel.com, a Los Angeles-based online-registry and wedding-planning service. Yahoo Personals has a special section devoted to success stories, while eHarmony festoons the hallways of its Pasadena, Calif., headquarters with photos of couples at their weddings, including one with “eHarmony” in icing on a computer-shaped cake.

Though there is no statistical evidence that the break-up rate among online daters is any different from the national average, some divorce lawyers point to anecdotal evidence. Eric Spevak, a New Jersey divorce lawyer, says that as many as one in five of his clients now comes from marriages that started on the Internet. “There's no consequences online—people can promise you anything, so engagements are shorter and people are rushing in,” says Mr. Spevak.

New York divorce lawyer Raoul Felder says he is also seeing more Internet daters splitting up in his practice: “It's usually a relationship based on fantasy or desperation, which doesn't bode well.”

False claims on online dating profiles are showing up in court as lawyers use the early dating profiles—with their fibs about wealth and status—for character attacks later. Robert Hoover, a lawyer in San Jose, Calif.,