People search engines help locate long lost family members, business associates, loved ones, and classmates. Besides finding people, people search engines are also used for “egosurfing” or “vanity searching”. Also known as “auto googling” or “self-googling”, by typing in a user name, individuals are able to view information that is posted about them online.
Several of the search engines listed below provide an additional resource for parents. Not only do these search engines search traditional online locations, but many search social networking websites and blogs. It is strongly recommended parents frequently perform vanity searches on children to monitor online activity and personal information that is published online.
The following people search engines offer varying search criteria and provide a variety of search results:
1. Wink is a comprehensive search engine that provides an invaluable resource for parents. Besides the “standard” people search inquiries, Wink searches over 300 million profiles from blogs and social networking sites including Facebook.
- Search by location, name, school and interests
- Refine searches by using marital status, birthdate and gender
Wink offers a variety of helpful and free tools for users:
- The Wink Widget
- Search plug-in for Firefox and IE 7 users
- A Wink button can be added to blogs and profile pages
2. Peek You is another people search engine that is simple and easy to use. "The smartest way to find people online", this service searches social networking websites and photographs, and registered users can add profile information. The user interface is sharp and clean with a new Google tab also included.
Search by:
- First and last name
- Username-which is an online nickname typically used in chat rooms, forums and social profiles
- Country
- Tags which are short descriptive words
3. Pipl delves deep within the “invisible web” for information traditional search engines do not search. Touted as "The most comprehenvisve people search on the web", besides traditional searches, Pipl searches through millions of social networking profiles as well as databases not commonly searched with traditional search engines. The Pipl interface is clean and simple and results are nicely categorized for easy viewing.
4. Spock is a newer search engine, still in beta, that includes a simple and straight-forward user interface. Started in 2006, Spock was voted “Top 25 Websites to Watch” in 2007 by PC Magazine.
Spock search engine includes:
- Tags which allow users and owners to add a variety of search engine optimized words. People can vote, add or delete tags
- Profile aggragation which helps consolidate various user identities and profiles
- Reputation Ranking
5. Yo Name provides three types of searches; people search, web search or public records search from Intelius, which is a paid search. Yo Name also searches social networking websites and blogs.
Search by:
- Username
- First and last name
- Telephone number
- Email address
Clicking on the “advance search” tab provides additional searches from:
- Webshots
- YouTube
- Match
6. Riya is a different type of search engine. Touted as a "visual" search engine, Riya performs searches by:
- Person
- Location
- Object
- Public photographs
- Album
- Tags
- Text
7. White Pages is similar to telephone directories people have at home. The online White pages has over 180 million adutls in their searchable databases which covers more than 80% of people in the United States.
Search by:
- People
- Business
- Reverse Address
- Reverse Telephone searches are used to find the owner of a particular telephone number. Type the phone number in the search box and the user will be identified in results.
Whether trying to find an old friend or egosurfing, the seven people search engines listed above are helpful online resources for young and old alike.
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