According to industry surveys, just over 80 per cent of Britain's internet users have visited dating sites — not merely the obvious, predictable ones, either, the likes of Match.com, the world's largest, or Direct Dating, top of the pile in the UK. In the modern age of life linked to the web, specialised portals can cater for your every dating whim.

Looking for a millionaire to pamper you? Try Sugardaddie.com. Have a passion for Pynchon? Penguin Dating will match you according to the books you love. Looking for something extra-marital (not that you should)? Then illicitencounters.com might be for you.

Now, however, a California-based company is bringing a new approach to the UK online meet-market: eHarmony is offering matchmaking through science.

Unlike more conventional dating sites, in which users search through reams of other hopeful singles for the perfect match, eHarmony members cannot browse other profiles or choose potential matches themselves. They must trust science — specifically, patented algorithms and psycho-metric profiling — to find their true love.

According to Greg Waldorf, eHarmony's chief executive: “It's not about matching people who like certain hobbies ... it's about compatibility. You go on to the site and tell us about you, rather than about what you want.”

The company, which has had about 20million members since its launch in 2000, is one of a growing band of dating sites that claim to use scientific methods to determine a couple's compatibility. The brainchild of Neil Warren, a clinical psychologist with 35 years' experience as a marriage counsellor, it does, however, claim to be the first.

“He [Dr Warren] began to ask what it was that had gone on in these marriages that was leading to all these problems,” Mr Waldorf said. “People were marrying people they weren't compatible with.” Over three years Dr Warren interviewed more than 1,000 couples to find out how happy they were. Then he used the results to create an algorithm, which the company claims matches people's core traits and values to replicate the traits of happy couples.

“Kismet, lightning strikes - whatever you want to call it, we can help,” Mr Waldorf said, “but you still have to find chemistry — the click — between you. Science can only take you so far.”

How far? A poll carried out by Harris Interactive reports that last year eHarmony was the force behind 236 marriages per day. That is more than 80,000 a year. Indeed, the company claims to bring about more than 2 per cent of all marriages in the United States.

However, what makes lightning strike in New York or Chicago may be a little different from London or Birmingham, so eHarmony set its team to tweak its algorithm to account for those transatlantic differences. Working with the Oxford Internet Institute, part of Oxford University, the company, which is located in Pasadena, Los Angeles, researched British relationships and applied what they found to its secret matchmaking formula.

It is a numbers game, but the numbers that count remain the same as for any business: eHarmony charges £33.95 for one month's membership, Dating Direct charges about £25 a month and Match.com charges around £22, although the monthly rates decrease as you sign up for longer periods. JupiterResearch, the internet and technology analyst, predicts that revenue from the online-dating market in Europe will reach £430 million by 2011, compared with £250 million last year. The number of people paying to use online-dating sites in Europe is expected to grow to six million by 2011, compared with 2.8 million two years ago. The British market is particularly strong — together with Germany, it accounts for more than half of European online personal spending. In contrast, American online dating — which is set to reach 11.7 million paid users next year - has virtually reached saturation.

Mr Waldorf is confident that there is a niche in the UK for his company, which he argues is the home of more serious daters looking for a long-term relationships: “The UK has a very strong market for online dating and that strength is combined with a gap in the market for matchmaking services.

“The stigma has gone. There are lots of dating sites for flirting or casual relationships — but in terms of the brand and space that eHarmony operates in, we offer something different.”

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