When it comes to online dating, one would think it a world dominated by the young, web-savvy folks in their 20s or 30s looking for love and the mates of their lives.

There’s a lot to that. The young do very much dominate online dating. Yet increasingly dating sites report a surge in older people, what they call silver singles, folks in the 50-plus set. Indeed, they say it’s now their fastest-growing demographic.

And no surprise, it’s also the most lucrative. Dating sites report that plus-50s are willing to spend more money in their search for love.

“Fifty-plus daters generate more subscriptions than younger daters, and they are more likely to subscribe for a longer period of time,” says Maida Goodman, spokesperson for online dating site Match.com, where 23 percent of subscribers are over 50, more than double the number two years ago. “Thus this segment is more lucrative than those under 50.”

In some ways it should come as no surprise that the 50+ demographic should be turning to online dating.

A good chunk of these folks are baby boomers, a group famous for reinventing their lives rather than settling into patterns established by prior generations. They tend to look at their retirement years as a doorway to new beginnings, and nothing quite signifies a new beginning as a new mate.

“Seniors today are much different than those of previous generations. They are more active and more adventurous than their predecessors,” says Match.com’s Goodman.

Boomers also tend to be comparatively healthy and well off, with kids out of the house and their big financial burdens behind them. They’re often divorced.

A survey last year by AARP found that 70 percent of single baby boomers said they dated regularly (on or offline).

What’s something of a mystery, though, is why the sudden spurt in just the last several years, considering that these distinguishing characteristics of boomers have been in place for some time.

It may simply be the wider acceptance of the internet. “As the internet grows in popularity and ease of use, more people who didn’t grow up with the internet are using its services,” says Benjamin Larkin, a spokesperson for online dating site TRUE.

At TRUE, the 50-plus set is the fastest-growing demographic for member signups, up 178.4 percent in 2006 compared to 2005 and now accounting for almost 10 percent of membership. In 2005, it was the slowest-growing demographic.

Larkin believes that the growth will continue as the stigma of online dating recedes and folks who have successfully found a partner online spread the word of their successes.

“Everything we see points to continued use of dating web sites by seniors and boomers,” he says.

Figures from Nielsen//NetRatings show older surfers are active at a number of online dating sites (see chart, below). Looking at the figures shows that the top online personals destination for the 45-plus age group in February 2007 was MSN Dating & Personals.

In fact, 54.13 percent of the people who went to that site in the month of February were 45 years old or more, according to Nielsen//NetRatings. Meanwhile, this age group was 1.3 times as likely as the average web user to go to MSN Dating & Personals in that month. 

Meanwhile, in online ratings for the week ended April 1, the top five parent companies were Microsoft, Google, Yahoo, Time Warner and News Corp. Online for the ninth straight week. The top five brands were Google, Yahoo, MSN/Windows Live, AOL Media Network and Microsoft.

NexTag was the top advertiser with 8.56 million impressions generated, passing usual No. 1 Experian Group Limited at 7.4 million. With 30.82 million ads served, Yahoo was again the top advertising site, more than quadrupling No. 2 MySpace at 6.27 million.

Sessions per person per week were up from last week to 17, with domains visited per person also up one to 40. Average PC time per person per week was up 1.4 percent to 17 hours and 6 minutes.