Tamar survey shows four out of five of online 18 to 24-year-olds prefer and trust natural search results over paid – up 13% on 2009

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The fourth annual report, commissioned by Tamar, the UK's award-winning search and social conversion agency, also finds that consumers online are starting to embrace real-time search.

Natural search as the trusted source is also reflected strongly in the older age groups, with the “grey generation” (55+) being the least likely to choose paid search results (3%) and nearly three out of five (73%) favouring the “organic” results.

Young online consumers, the “net natives”, are also leading the way in using real-time search, the concept of searching for and finding information online as it is produced via content distributed by the likes of Twitter and news sites, for example.

These search results have only been visible since the end of 2009, yet 47% of 18 to 24-year-olds use them and 8% think they are “very useful”. Older consumers show similar interest in real-time search but the number of those as yet undecided rises significantly through the age groups.

All consumers have issues over privacy and the storage of personal search history by Google and other search engines, which helps to deliver personalised search results, but few (14%) are very concerned.

Mobile search, especially among the “net natives”, is growing rapidly in popularity, with 14% of both the 18-24 and 25-34 age groups searching on mobile every day. The “grey” generation is embracing mobile search more slowly but this is also on the rise, reflecting rapidly growing smartphone sales in the UK.

Tamar commissioned research specialist YouGov for the fourth annual report to survey the search attitudes of a representative online panel of 2,210 UK consumers from 7th to 9th April 2010.

The momentum away from paid to natural search as the preferred and trusted information source among all UK consumers continues to grow, with a big rise in the younger age groups (18-24 group: 80% (natural search preference) this year; 67% 2009; 25-34 group: 73% this year; 69% 2009).

The growing preference for natural search is reflected across all age groups and social classes, with 4% more in both the ABC1 and C2DE groups choosing natural search than in 2009.

Overall, just 4% of consumers would choose paid search results over natural search results, down a further 1% from 2009 and 6% down on 2007. More people are making the choice as well, with 23% having no preference, 2% fewer than 2009.

Consumers are also more selective about the types of universal search results they follow when researching a purchase online, with reviews growing in popularity among all users (60% this year; 53% 2009) and images and photos increasingly important, particularly for the 35-44 age group, which saw a 10% rise (52% this year; 42% 2009).

Video is marginally less popular than last year for purchasing information with a single percentage drop in preference (3% this year; 4% 2009). However, this figure may not include the millions of searches made on YouTube and other video sites for product and brand information, which are central to successful integrated natural search campaigns.

The major search engines also introduced real-time search results in October 2009, which provide search matches that include a dynamic stream of real-time content from across the web (Twitter, news, blog posts etc).

These search results have only been visible since the end of 2009, yet 47% of 18 to 24-year-olds use them and 8% think they are “very useful”. Older consumers show a similar interest in real-time search.

The numbers of people using their mobile handsets to find products and brands through the search engines is still small compared to desktop and laptop access but the last year has seen the biggest rise among younger British consumers, with 14% of both the 18-24 and 25-34 age groups using a search engine on their mobile every day.

This compares with 2009, when only 5% of 18 to 24-year-oldsand just8% of the 25-34 age group were actively seeking search information through their handsets.