How to locate people online

There are many people who wish to reconnect with their old friends and family members. Fortunately, the internet provides a great variety of ways in which to locate people. If you want to discover how to find someone online, then keep on reading.

Overview

Our life has become so busy that we often don’t have enough time to nurture our relationship with people. Many people have regretted the fact that they have lost contact with their close friends and family members. Thankfully, in the modern age, there are many ways in which to perform a people look-up and find information about a person’s whereabouts. It is amazing how new technology can act as a “people locator”. The internet is the fastest and easiest way in which to locate a person. However, the question is: “How do I find people online?”

Search engines

Search engines can be very useful when looking for a person. They can help you to uncover many details about someone such as their place of work or their hobbies and interests. Simply, enclose the name of the person whom you are looking for in quotation marks and add some relevant personal details such as the individual's occupation or last-known location.

Social networks

Social networks like Facebook and MySpace allow you to search for people by name, and to filter the results by location and age. Facebook, in particular, is the largest social network on the internet and there is a very good chance that the individual whom you are trying to find has a profile there. You can either enter the person’s full name in the site’s search box or use his/her email address. You can also type in the name of the person's college or company. After you have located the person's profile, you can send him/her a friend request and if the person accepts, you can start communicating.

People finders

People finders are people-specific search engines. A good example is Pipl which is a free search tool that can find different data more effectively than what you would find by using search engines. Pipl gets its information from various sources and can retrieve data such as addresses, phone numbers, public records and online mentions about the person. You can simply enter the person's name in the search box and see what you come up with or you can narrow down the results by searching within a specific city, state or zip code.