There are many sites available to small and large businesses for freelancing, crowdsourcing or outsourcing. In searching for freelancers, it is hard to know which site is right for your business. WhichLance.com is a site dedicated to the outsourcing and crowdsourcing marketplace. Consider it as a starting point for researching your hiring or job search options.

At WhichLance, you can search and compare freelancing websites (four at a time), read reviews of freelancing websites (if a member you can review freelance job sites) and read resource articles provided for both freelance workers and recruiters.

WhichLance allows you to search reviews and filter by expertise, number of freelancers, commission, quality and skills (skills tests, buyer profiles, provider profiles, provider portfolios), safety and protection (escrow available, feedback and ratings, buyer guarantees, provider guarantees, freelancer monitoring, dispute resolution) and format (bidding, contests, directory, pay for time, fixed price).

The Review search filter is so-so. As a writer well-versed in the sites available to writers looking for work, I did a test search by expertise. The first test was searching for both writer and creative. The search pulls in only sites listing both keywords. So their search logic runs advanced searches as “AND” and not as “OR” which has a tendency to limit what you are looking for. I ran the search again using a filter for only the keyword writer and pulled in many more pages as expected.

It does not explain how the search results are sorted. It is not alphabetical and at first did not appear to be associated with any of their rating features from Buyers or Providers. Having checked the first few and the last few reviews of the search results it appeared sorted in the order you wouldn’t expect. Sites having a better Buyer and/or Provider rating were at the bottom of the search, not very helpful. Relevant to most means best reviews first.

One issue with the site is the fact that the directory is not complete. There are seven listings; more than half seem to be the most popular sites for freelancers and recruiters. Users are not able to search the reviews using a keyword. The global search on the site pulls in articles only, but no directory or review listings. The directory has an alphabet link finder which would be more useful to users if it were in the Review area to search the 16 pages of reviewed sites compared to the single page directory.

While WhichLance is a great place to start, I recommend making a list of companies to research further as some of the data may be out of date. The reviews include a note of when they were last modified at least. The blog on WhichLance hasn’t been updated since July 2011 and the Resource articles were last updated in November 2010, although the resources are still relevant. Resource articles are available on outsourcing, freelancing, best for, and market review. Their News articles were last updated in February 2012. The WhichLance site also includes resources in the way of videos and a job listing page, pulling in listings from an affiliate site.

The best value you get from WhichLance is a comprehensive list of sites to check out in further detail after reading their review. Each review includes an overview, info for buyers, info for providers, a verdict (they mention if they have used the site personally here), buyer tips and provider tips. The Additional Info section of each review is comprehensive info on the site. This is the information pulled in for a side-by-side view of four sites at once when you use the Compare feature. There are also member reviews included at the bottom of each site review. Sometimes word-of-mouth is all you need to determine whether a site is right for you.