untangling_the_web

DOCID: 4046925
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Recommended People Search Techniques
Now that you have a pretty good idea of sites to avoid or at least not waste a lot of
time on, what kinds of resources are available to help you find people? How do you
find information about a person? Here are some recommended steps to use in
searching for people, keeping in mind that there is no one way to do this and
certainly no guarantee of success.
1. Start a search for a person by name, address, email address, phone number
or any other uniquely identifying information using not one but several good
search engines (Google, Yahoo, and several foreign search engines as
appropriate). Common names will return too many hits to be useful, so you
must find some limiting query term to narrow down the search.
2. Try to find the person in Google and Yahoo Groups, weblogs, and news
stories using several high-quality news search engines.
3. Try telephone, email, address, and other lookups at a variety of online
directories. The quality of these directories varies greatly. Be sure to look for
directories specific to a city or country.
4. If you know the person's profession, you might find additional information
about him in a database that contains such things as licensing information.
The US is very good about licensing all types of professions; check other
countries for similar information.
5. Property ownership and transactions are carefully recorded in the US and
many such records are publicly accessible. This may also be true in other
countries. Look for such public databases of these records and transactions.
6. If a person has other interests, such as hobbies, you may find more
information about him at a site devoted to that sport or hobby, especially if it's
an unusual one.
7. If you know where a person works, that organization (be it government,
academic, or corporate) may have a publicly accessible directory of its
employees, faculty, students, alumni, or members.
8. Check the ICO directory. Instant Messaging (1M) is popular worldwide.
9. Whois databases contain information about thousands of people associated
with the Internet. It's worth a look. The Whois databases maintained by ARIN,
APNIC, AfriNIC, LACNIC, and RIPE are all searchable by name using their
advanced search forms.
10. Famous dead people are not the only ones listed in biographical directories. If
the person you're seeking is at all well known, he might have an entry.
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