UK based online marketing firm Harvest Digital surveyed “experienced” internet users about their attitudes toward search. Unsurprisingly, a majority of people reported using Google, but notably, only 24% reported using a single search engine. A full 20% said they regularly used four or more search engines.Why use so many? UK users, despite relying heavily on search engines as a significant source of information, don’t trust the results they get. Just 22% of users reported that they were confident that search engines would always give them the information that they needed.

But users blame themselves, not the engines. Just 8% said the problem was poor search engine performance. Many more said the problem was caused by their use of the engine, with 36% saying that they were not using correct terms and a further 32% said that they were looking for information that was too specialized.

The remaining 24% blamed search advertisers, though it’s not clear whether this result related to sponsored links or whether survey respondents thought advertisers were buying their way into the top of natural search results (the study didn’t attempt to answer this question).

Supporting but also in contrast to the iProspect findings, 43% of searchers said that the most important reason for clicking on a result was that it appeared on the first page, with just 8% saying that the brand name or website looked reputable. 32% said the relevance of the description was most important, with 17% saying that a result at the top of the first page was the most important criteria.