Sunday, May 10, 2009

Free Online People Search

By Dana Goldberg

Ever wondered what happened to that old crush you had in high school? Trying to locate that guy who still owes you $10 in lunch money? Looking to hook up with the people who used to mean something in your life, or you've lost touch with? Here's a few methods describing how to find people for free, just a little effort on your part.

The first and most effective place to find people for free is one of the big social networking sites such as Facebook.com, MySpace and Friendster. If you're looking for ex-coworkers or people in a specialized field, job specific sites such as Linkedin.com could be more effective because they focus on professionals.

So how to search for your lost friend or former co-worker? You can start entering your friends name into the search box you can find on Myspace, Facebook, Friendster or Linkedin. You need to be aware that if you are looking for a woman, she might have be married and this is why she changed her last name. You can of course try to search only using the firs tname or nickname, but this will be a lot of work.

But you cannot only use social networkign sites to search for people. It is a good idea to create profiles yourself. Add as much data as possible and make sure to upload a photo. In this way in case someone is searching for you, he or she can find you easily.

If the social networking sites did not give you any results you might want to try a straight Google search. Go to Google, type the name of the person you are searching for into the searhc box and wait for the results. In case your lost friend or relative has a very common name, it is advised to include hometown or high school name in your search. Very often this will bring up class reunion results. Class reunion results are a great way to find old school mates.

The last method is checking phone listing sites, like whitepages.com. This can be best if you know first and last name as well as the city they're located in, but there will be little detail to go on to verify that you've got the right person. But it could give you clues to help you track the person down.

When you are looking for information on an old firend or lost relative alway be aware that there are scam sites out there. These site charge a fee for doing exactly what is described in this article. It is also not recommended to use dating sites for finding people. Why? People often use pseudonyms and you will have to pay to get access to profiles or to contact them. In addition there are many dating sites, so chances are not good finding the person you are looking for.

In case the methods described in this article to find people online for free did not give you results, I highly recommend joining a People Search service. These services cost around $20, however, you will get comprehensive results with some mouse clicks. Reports will include phone, address, previous addresses, marital status, criminal history and a lot more.

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