The field of the invention relates to systems and methods for operation of a matching service, and more particularly to systems and methods that enable online compatibility matching and ranking. In a preferred embodiment, the system includes a matching system server coupled to a public network and accessible to one or more users. The matching system server includes a database that stores match profile data associated with the one more users, wherein the match profile data includes self-identified preferences. The matching server system is configured to correlate a first user's match profile data with one or more of the plurality of users' match profile data to identify a set of potential matches for the first user based on a relaxed set of self-identified preferences and calculate a compatibility value for each match in the set of potential matches.