Tinder no longer uses ‘desirability’ score to rank people on its platform

Popular dating app Tinder wants to bring in more transparency about how its platform ranks and shows people their potential matches. In order to do this, Tinder has published a blog post that talks about the subject. However, we should mention that it still keeps fairly vague.

According to the blog post, the company’s Elo score was a ‘hot topic’ till a few years back, however, now the ranking feature has been depreciated. Tinder’s Elo score used to rank people on the basis of attractiveness. We should mention that in the real world, Elo scores are actually used to rank chess players, but in Tinder, it goes up as more and more number of people swipe right on a person’s profile.

And then, their profile is shown to other people who have similar scores. It is Tinder’s way of making the most desirable people interact with one another. We should mention that since profiles are limited in scope, a person’s looks and attractiveness play a key role in matches getting made. But then, people also started speculating that with Elo scores on, only the attractive lot kept talking to one another, while the ‘undesirable’ people were left with a low ranking.

The company said in the blog post, “Our algorithm is designed to be open. Today, we don’t rely on Elo — though it is still important to consider both parties who Like profiles to form a match.”

The dating app has clarified that it adjusts the potential matches of the user each time someone acts on their profile. Furthermore, Tinder rearranges the user’s possible match profiles within 24 hours of the action being taken. This means that potential matches are constantly updated. So if an action was taken on your profile, you would see a change in your potential matches.

But then, this is more or less as transparent as Tinder got in the blog post. The algorithm that has been spoken about in the blog post seems to identify patterns around likes. So, if two women on Tinder swipe right to the same guy’s profile, the dating app would deduce that they have similar taste when it comes to looking for a potential partner. Then, if one of the two women swipe right on another guy’s profile, that profile would be shown to the other girl too, because chances are that she may end up swiping right on him.