New York, Nov 3 (IANS): Online daters are not looking for love outside their cultural background, reveals a study, adding that women are significantly more likely than men to prefer partners within their own race.

Men seemed to prefer younger women. Women, on the other hand, seemed to prefer men closer to their own age, the study from famous dating website OkCupid revealed.

The findings that involved over three million OkCupid members puzzled researchers because nearly all users on the dating site support inter-racial relationships.

"An individual cannot really control who turns him/her on. I do think the fact that race is a sexual factor for so many and in such a consistent way, raises deeper questions," Christian Rudder, co-founder of the online dating site, was quoted as saying on Daily Mail.

Researchers, however, found that in the end, romantic compatibility seemed to be determined by what people had in common rather than ethnicity.