Ladslads: Site Review
Ladslads
Mothership Blog takes a look at Ladslads in the second of our series of gay dating site reviews
Ladslads
Domain www.ladslads.com
Since 2006
Based Admin/management: UK Server and holding company: USA
Run by Ladslads LLC (Nevada, USA), but credit card payments to Panremmus Software, Wales
Market Gay and bi men - mostly younger, mostly UK and Ireland
Blogs
Chat
Video
Mobile
Style
Ladslads gay networking
Ladslads has a fresh, clean appearance and offers a youthful site that is very much geared toward gay networking. The light white and blue palette gives an open, approachable feel to the user, although it feels very bland without the strong cohesive identity of more heavily branded sites like Fitlads or Mothership
Ladslads is very big on encouraging networking - partly through its ‘friend finder’ service (which also acts as an outreach to recruit more members), and by blogging. One regular user we spoke to said that the younger guys and the older guys didn’t really ‘gel’ that well and tended to keep apart. He went on to say:
“…the site has no soul, no camaraderie, it’s a shallow, fuck n chuck, look-at-me site”
Other users say:
“Ladlads…is better than ever now.”
“They do have some great videos.”
Site Features
Ladslads‘ blog feature is very much the heart of the site. Ladslads blogs are essentially personal thoughts on just about anything, and these are displayed, search-able and you can post your own, although you may have to pay, or use their ‘Friend Finder’ tool (more below).
Ladslads' blogs are the heart of the site
The site has the usual gay chat (although you can’t use it unless you upload a photo), and a comprehensive video facility - a brief glance through showed a big selection of mostly x-rated amateur videos. You can’t see the videos unless you upgrade or use Friend Finder, and even then you can only see a certain number of videos for free (unless you upload your own).
Videos are not shown on the profiles which is curious for a dating/networking site. It makes it feel like the videos are just a pornographic addition to the site with nothing to do with the process of getting to know other guys (which is surely the point of a networking site?)
Ladslads offers several search facilities, although the lack of ‘cock size’ for a gay dating site is notable - I’m guessing that must be a hangover from the faceparty site, similarly the emphasis on family and children in the search fields.
Site navigation took some familiarisation, although ’Quick Lookups’ was a definite plus.
Free or Paid?
Ladslads is very aggressive in persuading members to upgrade to their paid service (currently £50 a year). ‘Supporters’ get extras including unlimited video views, searches and photo views.
However, if you don’t upgrade it is very hard indeed to use the site properly without being forced to use their ‘Friend Finder’ tool. This entails giving Ladslads your email address and password - they log in to your email account and dig out your contacts (there must be at least 10) and you select 5 of them for the site to email and invite to join.
You can even be prevented from reading your messages unless you use Friend Finder. Harsh!
Ups and downs
According to Alexa (which is not perfect) Ladslads has enjoyed strong growth for its first two years, but since January this year its site traffic has been fairly static - coming in just below Fitlads.
Ladslads have been extremely aggressive in the way they compete (as Fitlads will confirm). They came in for a lot of criticism in 2008 for charging a £10 text message to remove your profile, and when an art student complained a message appeared on his profile saying he had cancer. Ladslads do not charge to remove profiles anymore.
The site administration is handled by volunteers and there are still claims of unfair treatment and unprofessional behaviour (scroll down to comments after clicking link). The site also blocks the names of its competitors in messages, including Mothership (Mothership does not block messages containing Ladslads 
)
However, all this said, the fact that Ladslads has successfully established a thriving gay networking community from scratch in just three years is a remarkable achievement.
Ladslads - the future
Ladslads video page
Ladslads has a number of challenges to meet if it is going to overtake Fitlads and become the UK’s second biggest gay dating site.
The great thing about Ladslads is that they are continually developing their site (currently version 3.3), have recently launched a mobile application and are even working on an iphone app too (presumably to compete with Fitlads).
However, their growth appears to have stalled, and what’s more Fitlads V2 is on the way, so they have their work cut out.
Finally, buy a dictionary already! The site is stuffed full of spelling mistakes!
Ladslads Site Summary
Good: Approachable design, youthful site, great video section, lively blogs
Bad: Poor reputation for customer service, soul-less, intrusive ‘friend-finder’ tool, sloppy spelling mistakes
By David Abrehart
(c) Copyright 2009. All rights reserved.
Related posts:
Mothership a dirty word on Ladslads
Fitlads
Hot gay guys
Scally lads
Fitlads members claim harsh treatment after Jade Goody video
Gaydar updated
Gaydar
What do you think of Ladslads? Please feel free to comment below:
August 1st, 2011 at 5:34 pm
i have been a member of this site for about 8 month,and this week its starting to say im a guest.i cannot receive or send any msgs.keeps saying i need to become a full member?a m8 msg a moderator on my behalf to ask to cancel and delete my profile.this site is 1 nightmare.the moderator told him i would have to contact them myself,thick or what.it wont even let me message anyone?anyone help pls.thank yoy.
September 17th, 2010 at 3:04 pm
Check out the scathing Pink Paper article about LadsLads rather than read Mothership’s sugar-coated review of the site:
http://news.pinkpaper.com/NewsStory.aspx?id=2520
June 15th, 2010 at 12:31 am
I was banned earlier today for not having a face picture, I was told “for the safety of users on this site, you must upload a face picture”, apparently safety of others is more important than the safety of myself and when questioned about this, I was told to comply with the terms and conditions (which do not state the need for a face picture” or be deleted, I complied with the CURRENT Ts and Cs and was therefore deleted because the admins could not be bothered to change the Ts and Cs immediately
March 3rd, 2010 at 12:44 pm
fitlads alows members to be racist and discriminating not only to other members but to members outside the community
fitlads is a terrible site, however…
the only reason it is more popular is beacause the guys can get away with more hence they yse it!
if th admin staff were to delete every racist, bullying, discriminatory, maddie mcCann or jade goody thread then the (so called FIT) lads would stop using it….
but let them run the place, do what they like and they will stay. its that simple
February 15th, 2010 at 3:28 am
Ladslads alows members to be racist and discriminating not only to other members but to members outside the community. I have had my video’s removed from ladslads, uploads are interfered with or slowed down. I have instructed ladslads to stop withdrawing funds from my account they have ignored my email. I have instructed ladslads that legal action will be taken if they attempt to continue to withdraw funds from my account. My email has been ignored. Ladslads moderators are in effective in dealing with complaints or monitoring. A blog I posted asking other members if they had experienced problems with ladslads was removed imediately. I wouldonly advise users to use the free service and not to pay for the aditional services no matter how tempting. ladslads favours the younger generation and agism even in the chat rooms is rife with accusations by the younger generation that older members are PAEDO’s
It is trully disheartening that this site is so rife with abuse and discrimination
Roy
October 29th, 2009 at 3:14 pm
Steve G was banned from that site for racism, threats and abusing other users, so I would treat him with extreme caution. He is currently pursuing a campaign of harassment against one of the administrators on that site because he got caught out and subsequently banned by the owner for making threats and personal attacks against the admin in question because they are disabled.
October 6th, 2009 at 1:34 am
If you have complaints about the ladslads chatsite Visit our website at: http://www.when-ladslads-goes-bad.webs.com
We can put you in touch with agencies that will force your issue with ladslads to resolve your complaint.
August 29th, 2009 at 9:38 am
Thanks for the comment and sorry to hear that.
Be interesting to hear what Ladslads say, or an opinion from a fan of the site.
Anyway best of luck Nick.
August 29th, 2009 at 5:06 am
Thats true I tried to leave ladslads ages ago got into a dispute with them they changed my proflie to hiv poz and infected my pc my proflie is fayt and no I didn’t send any messages or winks on that site the admin likes to take over my ladslads profile and ban me and its true once u join u can never leave if u don’t agree with them they will make you suffer they have broken loads of laws including invasion of privacy discrimination theat people to become subscribers tried to report them but there is a reason they don’t have anyway to concact them by all rights they are illigal and should be put out of business but as long as my profile is there will make there life hell ps. thanks to then “fixing” my profile almost got raped anyone with simular ladslads experiences my e-mail faytliongod@hotmail.com also can get me on tagged tagged.com/Nick1986guay thanks for reading my comment have a great one:) Nick:)
August 28th, 2009 at 10:06 am
Thanks Jay
I think Ladslads do allow 16 year olds to join, but they can’t see any unmoderated content, and I’m guessing they can’t upload any x-rated material either - so it looks like the site remains on the right side of the obscene publications act.
August 25th, 2009 at 5:05 pm
Terrible site! Not only do they let in minors, they also attack other websites and users who leave their site. DO NOT USE THEM!