Follow Your Heart Index methodology
The Follow Your Heart Index is an official 0-to-100 whole-life score calculated only when all five governed component scores are available.
Follow Your Heart Index = 25% Partner Availability + 25% Settlement Feasibility + 15% Economic Capacity + 15% Relationship Environment + 20% Opportunity Strength.
The approved whole-life balance gives 40% to relationship-facing conditions and 60% to the practical foundation for building a life. No missing component is estimated, replaced, or reweighted. If any component is unavailable, the Index is not published for that place.
At ZIP level, the formula combines the five governed ZIP component scores. At city-market level, each component is first population-weighted across eligible ZIPs and must meet its coverage requirement; the approved formula is then applied to those five city component scores. Index rankings use standard competition ranking: 1, 2, 2, 4.
Each city market groups ZIP areas assigned to the same primary city and state. Population figures are sums of those ZIP areas and are not official municipal-boundary estimates. The site therefore says city market rather than claiming an official Census place ranking.
The ZIP comparison preserves every governed ZIP record, including records without a published population estimate. City-market aggregation uses only ZIP records with a positive published population because population weighting cannot be performed otherwise.
Public city rankings require at least 50,000 estimated city-market residents. A city component requires at least 80% of its applicable population denominator to have a governed non-null ZIP score. Partner Availability uses the published population age 15 and older denominator; the other four component rollups use total population.
Partner Availability comes from published.relocation_for_love_partner_availability_score_current.partner_availability_score_v1. Settlement Feasibility comes from the certified settlement publication. Economic Capacity and Relationship Environment come from the certified ZIP Story publication. Opportunity Strength comes from published.zip_opportunity_strength_current.
The five governed component scores are not recalculated or reweighted. The Follow Your Heart Index is a new transparent combination of those certified inputs. Component rankings remain published independently so visitors can see the tradeoffs behind the overall result.
The optional broad community rankings use published ACS5 2024 demographic counts. Visitors choose population count or population share. Hispanic or Latino is an ethnicity and may overlap with race categories. The White count is estimated from the published ZIP-level White population share and total population. Race and ethnicity are not inputs to the Follow Your Heart Index.
The public experience uses the familiar words ethnicity, heritage, and community. The official Census source describes these as ancestry responses. People may report more than one ancestry, so counts across communities can overlap and must not be added together.
Community counts come from main.relationship_general_ancestry_zip_ranking_v1_0_1.zip_ancestry_population and are summed across the governed ZIPs assigned to each eligible primary-city market. Community share divides that sum by the full published city-market population. Every community is ranked independently by estimated population and by local population share using standard competition ranking. The searchable page loads one community file at a time, and each published community has its own Top 10 page.
Race, ethnicity, heritage, and ancestry context is optional. It does not alter the Follow Your Heart Index or any component.
ZIP, city, and category sponsorships are paid advertising opportunities for reviewed professionals and organizations. Every active placement must be visibly labeled Sponsored. Sponsorship cannot change Index or component scores, rankings, demographic results, eligibility, source selection, methodology, or editorial conclusions. An advertisement is not a clinical endorsement.
The Index supports geographic exploration and comparison. It does not predict personal compatibility, guarantee a relationship outcome, replace professional advice, or decide whether someone should move.
V3.4.3 identity discovery contract
The certified 2024 ACS identity backbone is the primary identity universe. When a desired community is not available there at the needed granularity, the governed Relationship Intelligence detailed-origin / detailed-Asian layer supplies the fallback. Existing community identity, ancestry, and detailed origin are preferred for the default consumer page; birthplace is used as a fallback or secondary lens.
Overlapping identity measures must not be added together. Ancestry responses, birthplace, race, ethnicity, and detailed origin can describe the same person through different Census questions. Each lens remains separate. Identity discovery has no effect on the Follow Your Heart Index.