The Most Effective and Simple Ways to Find a Person Online

Cindy Ellis - December 21, 2023

In the decades before the internet, if you lost a phone number or moved, you would likely lose contact with most of your social circle. Nowadays, with the advancement of the internet, the ability to keep in touch with people has never been simpler.

Unfortunately, it isn’t always easy to know where to look when trying to track down an old friend, family member, or colleague.

Thankfully, there are a few tried and tested methods to get in contact with someone expediently and in under a few minutes. The following paragraphs will concisely and comprehensively cover how to find a person online.

Ways to Find a Person Online

There are several ways to locate a person online, but we will focus on a few of the most reliable methods. The best way to find a person online is to make a note of any relevant information you can think of regarding the person you are looking for. Previous and current employment, phone number, address, and first and last name can all be hugely beneficial.

The internet has gotten very expansive over its decades-long lifespan, and putting in someone’s full name will not cut it anymore, especially if the name is relatively common. Instead, you will need to find information that identifies the person and narrows down searches to be more refined.

When you have collected any and all details you can remember of the person, start going through the various methods below.

Use Information.com

People search engines have become the most reliable and efficient method for tracking a former friend, colleague, or acquaintance. Whether you only have their full name, address, or phone number, Information.com can give you a detailed profile of the person from a vast database of public records.

The beauty of using a site like Information.com is that you can add more relevant data to future searches from the results gathered from a basic search. If you only know their first name and phone number, a basic search can give you more details about the person you wish to get in contact with.

The site has multiple search options with the most basic being a people lookup, which requires little more than a full name and general location. We also offer reverse phone number lookup, address lookup, public records search, and more.

Our report won’t just give you the person’s contact information; it will list out their previous employment history any criminal charges, and can even do a background check.

Unlike other people search engines, Information.com is free of sneaky spyware or pop-up advertisements, so you can rest assured.

Those interested in using Information.com should make sure to avoid doing any searches that are prohibited by the Fair Credit and Reporting Act (FCRA). To get a detailed list of what you can and can’t use people’s search engines for, check out our quick and convenient Do’s and Don’ts page.

Perform a Search on Social Media

The internet has always kept track of people’s digital footprints in one way or another, but social media has made it explicitly simple to find people and connect with others. It has proved invaluable for networking, keeping in touch with distant friends and relatives, and updating people on your day-to-day life.

It is also great for tracking someone down on the internet should you need to find someone for business, social, or personal reasons. Sites like Facebook, Instagram, and others can easily track someone down by typing their name, phone number, or general location into the search bar.

Similar to other methods in this article, the more relevant information you have – the better your chances of narrowing down search results. This is important with social media sites, as the bigger ones like Facebook have a population of users that sits around a few billion.

Regrettably, social media is not as thorough and reliable as Information.com due to the increasing focus on privacy on social media sites. Depending on the targetted individuals’ privacy settings, you may have to find another route if they do not make their personal information publicly available.

If you know someone’s employment history but aren’t overly familiar with their personal contact information, a website like LinkedIn may help you get more details about a person. A surprising amount of people are using career-focused networking platforms like LinkedIn nowadays, and it is always worth giving a shot if other sites don’t yield results.

Use Google, Bing, or DuckDuckGo

It may seem a monumental task to try and find a single person in a search engine with an endless supply of results, though there are a few valuable methods to narrow down an inquiry. Most sites (notably Google) have “search operators,” which allow a person to narrow down a search based on the operator used.

You will want to put any helpful contact information about a person in quotations (“Mike Michaelson”) as well as any other details you may know about a person.

If you knew that Mike Michaelson lived in Chicago and used to work at Wrigley Field, you could enter: “Mike Michaelson” Chicago “Wrigley Field.”

There may not be information about Mike’s time working at Wrigley Field, in which case it may be better to limit information to his name, address, or general location.

Google, Bing, and DuckDuckGo will not be as reliable as a social media search and are much less comprehensive than Information.com, though it is worth a shot. It will require more information than the previous methods, however.

Summary of Finding People Online

You could spend all day pouring through results in a general search or going through pages of social media accounts to find a person, but these methods make the process far quicker. Finding someone on the internet isn’t difficult, but not knowing the correct steps can make it arduous and challenging.

The most effective method is a site like Information.com, which can easily give you extensive details and results in seconds. Even better, the site has various ways of finding someone, from address lookup to phone number and general location searches.

There are enough problems to deal with in your day; using a site like Information.com or a specialized search through social media or Google can simplify an otherwise difficult task.