Here's a new matchmaking web site that's more concerned with your net worth than your love life.

Wiseradvisor.com seeks to help people sort through an array of financial professionals, from brokers and estate planners to tax experts, and pair them with the best match. The service, launched in December, is a product of Internet company WebFinance Inc., which hosts educational Web sites for do-it-yourself investors.

Wiseradvisor.com is not a perfect solution to the hardships of finding the right financial advice. Consumers are limited to a rather small pool of advisors (currently about 1,300) and they must conduct their own due diligence, including background checks and interviews. But the site can help advice-hungry consumers locate a handful of prospective experts. Plus, it's a rather inexpensive marketing tool for advisors.

Different Cost Structures

Users start by checking off the type of advice they want from a list that includes taxes, estate planning and portfolio management. Users are then directed to a short questionnaire that asks about preferences on fee structure and location of the advisor, among other things. The idea is to narrow the search down to an advisor who fits your needs, like one located within 20 miles of your home who is paid by fees rather than commissions.

Once the questionnaire is completed, a list of advisors is provided. From here, the user can glean the advisors' profiles for further information and then contact those advisors they like. One bonus: The site won't pass along your information to advisors until after you initiate contact.

The matches don't always fit. After going through the process for a tax and insurance advisor, I was matched to a few advisors who seek clients with a minimum net worth of between $500,000 to $1 million, well out of my league. And users can't assume the information they see about advisors is truthful or accurate. Wiseradvisor.com has some protections in place to weed out fake or deceitful applications from advisors, including random background checks. But users still need to conduct their own due diligence, including verifying credentials and reviewing any history of complaints.

Past attempts to make money matching people with financial professionals haven't always been successful, despite the growing need by investors to seek out financial advice. Matchmaking service Investortree.com was started in 2000 and closed down only two years later. TheRightAdvisor.com, a joint venture of financial research group Dalbar Inc. and Microsoft Corp.'s (MSFT) MSN MoneyCenter Web site, is still around, but it has seen the numbers of advisors it serves decline to less than 2,000 from a previous peak of about 2,500.

Ross F. Mongiardo, a financial planner in Garden City, N.Y., who subscribes to TheRightAdvisor.com, says the experience has been "ok." Four years and $3,000 later, the site has generated one client for him. (TheRightAdvisor.com charges advisors $750 a year to keep their information on the site.)

"Obviously they're not my primary marketing source," Mongiardo said. Still, he will remain with them since they matched him with a good client at "minimum expense and minimum effort," he said.

Tom Murcko, chief executive of WebFinance Inc., hopes that Wiseradvisor.com's pay-per-lead system differentiates it from TheRightAdvisor.com, which is probably it's greatest competitor. "The burden is on us to continue to provide high-quality leads," said Murcko. He added: "Basically, if they don't get clients, we don't get paid."