Writing a Description That Passes Moderation

The description is the one field on your profile that nobody else can produce for you. Photos can be shot in an afternoon and parameters are just numbers, but the text is where a listing either sounds like a person or sounds like every other listing on the page. There are two rules and one limit, and then there is the craft. This article covers both.

The rules and the limit

The description is also a required field, like everything else on the form. There is no version of a live profile that skips it.

The two rules are checked during moderation, which takes up to 24 hours and is usually done within about an hour if you have contacted the manager through the advertiser panel and completed payment. If your description is rejected you are given the reason, and you can fix it and submit again — but a rewrite is one of the few things that can stretch a fast approval into a slow one, so it is worth getting right the first time.

Why originality is required

Duplicated text destroys the value of a directory for everyone standing in it. When ten profiles carry variations of the same paragraph, a visitor scrolling the page cannot distinguish between them and stops reading descriptions altogether. At that point the field is dead weight for every model on the site, including the ones who wrote their own. Requiring originality is what keeps the text worth reading — which is what makes writing yours worth the effort.

There is a self-interested version of the same argument. If your description could sit unaltered on someone else’s profile, it is not doing anything for you. Text that only makes sense attached to you is the only text that gives anyone a reason to choose you.

Why the accuracy rule includes contacts

Misleading contact information is called out specifically, and there is a reason. A profile that lists a number nobody answers, or contact details that route somewhere other than where they claim, wastes the visitor’s time and undermines confidence in every listing next to it. Your Telegram and WhatsApp numbers need to be numbers you actually use.

Writing something original when you are staring at a blank box

Most people who end up copying were not trying to cheat. They opened the field, could not think of anything, and reached for a profile that read well. The fix is to stop trying to write a description and start assembling material about yourself first.

Spend ten minutes answering these on paper before you write a sentence:

• Which city and district are you actually in, and what does that mean practically for someone arranging to meet?
• What languages do you speak, and how well?
• What are you like in conversation — talkative, calm, dry, warm? Pick the word that is true, not the one that sounds best.
• What do you have background in outside this work? Study, travel, a profession, a sport, a country you grew up in.
• What kind of arrangement suits you — unhurried and planned, or straightforward and prompt?
• What do the people who come back tend to say about you?

Nobody else can answer those six questions the way you will. A description built from your own answers is original as a matter of course, without you having to think about the rule at all.

Structure that reads well

Once you have the material, the shape is straightforward. This is craft advice rather than a requirement — nothing here is enforced, it simply works. Three hundred words is the ceiling, and five short sections fit inside it comfortably at around fifty words each. If you are pushing the limit, the problem is usually padding rather than having too much to say.

1. Open with something specific. The first line is the only one guaranteed to be read. Start with a concrete detail rather than a general claim about yourself.
2. Say who you are. Where you are from, where you are now, what languages you have. Facts, briefly.
3. Give a sense of manner. How you communicate and how a meeting with you tends to go. This is the paragraph that does the most work and the one most people skip.
4. Be clear about the practical side. Your area, and how you prefer to be contacted — consistent with the rates and numbers already on your profile.
5. Close simply. One line. A plain invitation to get in touch beats a flourish.

What makes a description weak

A note on translation

If English is not your first language, write in the language you think in and then translate carefully. A description written directly in shaky English tends to lose everything that made it yours; a translated one keeps the substance. Then read the result once out loud. Anything you would not say aloud comes out.

The test for a good description: could it be moved onto another profile without changing a word? If yes, rewrite it. If no, it is doing its job.

Before you submit

1. Every sentence is yours, written for this listing.
2. Every statement is true.
3. Contact details are correct and are ones you answer.
4. It is within 300 words.
5. Nothing contradicts your parameters or your stated rates in AED.
6. It reads like a person rather than an advertisement.

Write it into the profile editor once you are logged in. If any part of the wider process is unclear, How to Get Listed: From Sign-Up to Live Profile covers registration through to going live, and Photo Requirements: What Gets Approved covers the gallery that sits alongside your text. Anything not answered there can go to the manager, whose contact is inside the advertiser panel once you are logged in.