Four Comprehensive Search Engines for Social Networks

This article now available in How Do Private Eyes Do That? available on Kindle and Nook.

Who’s Calling Me? Or How to Find the Name Behind an Unknown Number

Article now available in How Do Private Eyes Do That? available on Kindle and Nook.

 

Reverse Email Searches: The Good, the Bad, and the Costly

Sometimes all a person has is an email address and he/she would like more information associated to it (like a name, website link, maybe an address).  There are reverse email searches online that make you pay upfront–sometimes you get good info, sometimes it’s old, outdated, or just plain bad info.  Shame to spend that money when, instead, you can just run a free reverse email  search.  Let’s look at a few of those options.

Pipl.com. We’ve become fond of this free deep-web search engine (for those wanting to know what a “deep web” search engine is, in a nutshell: Its web crawlers find information traditional search engines miss). Go to Pipl.com, click the “Email” link, enter the email address, and press the “Search” button. This takes a little sleuthing on your part because you’ll need to check the information in those links to find other information associated with that email address. For example, one of the links might be a website where that email address appears–you’ll need to click on that link and review the website content for information (like a name, phone number, address) connected to that email address.

YoName: This searches several dozen social networking sites with one tidy search. Go to YoName.com, enter the email address, and press the “Yo!” button (gotta love a search engine with a Yo! button). As with Pipl, you need to click on a link to review its content for information associated with that email address.

Google: Probably should’ve put this at the top of the list because Google still ranks as the most comprehensive, free, public search engine. Simply go to Google.com, enter the email address, and press the “Google Search” button.  It’ll display every online site and document where it finds that email address–like for Pipl or YoName, click a link to review its content for any information associated to that email address.

Have a great week, Writing PIs