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- Search Engines
- Google
- Google is the best search
engine on the Web and it is my favorite.
I usually don't even bother with
other search engines anymore.
Google also has a directory, ala Yahoo, and Groups.
Groups are the old Usenet archives. But, they also have
special features. These are found at Google
Features. One feature I like, as a webmaster, is their
Who Links To You feature, to tell you who is linking to
you.
- AllTheWeb
- Recently I was doing research to find the sites that
mention my high school classmates, to update my
Class 219 page. In addition to
Google, I used AllTheWeb. It found quite a few
pages that Google did not. So don't just rely on
Google. One really nice thing that AllTheWeb
has is their more hits. For each item found you can
then find other pages at the same site that match your search
items.
- Dogpile
- Occasionally, after Google if I want to see if
anyone else has anything interesting on my search object, I'll
try Dogpile, a meta search engine. That is, it
searches many search engines and presents its results, by
search engine.
- Vivisimo
- Vivisimo presents results in
clusters. This really
helps when there are many results in areas you are not
interested in. For instance, if you were looking for
information on vitamins, but didn't want all the sites that
are selling vitamins, these clusters would be great. All the
stores would probably be in one cluster. You just don't look
at that cluster. Thus, it is a little slower to return, but
so much faster to search.
- BrainBoost
- Brain Boost takes searches in normal English
questions. The results are therefore very specific and
usually you get what you want right away. You might even get
the answer in what is displayed, without having to use the
hyperlink.
- Find a Web Name
- NetCraft
- NetCraft is a site that will find you the
web sites that have the letters you give it as part of
their name. If you can only remember part of a site's
name, or you want to find all the sites that have your
name as part of their name, this site will find them for
you. Great tool!!
If you would like to see who owns that
site click on 'What's That Site Running',
or use ARIN WHOIS
Database Search or use
DNS Index in my
Technical area to find who owns
the sites.
- Telephone Directories
- Switchboard
- Switchboard and others are all pretty similar.
Some require full last names. Most provide maps and might
have an e-mail address with the address or on separate search.
E-mail address searches usually do not provide home addresses,
so you cannot determine who it is. Many e-mail addresses and
phone numbers are out-of-date, even though telephone
directories have been updated recently.
- White Pages
- White Pages is a telephone directory that has a
feature that the others do not have. Some have a reverse
directory, where you can look up a phone number and get the
name. White Pages has that, plus a reverse directory by
address. Enter an address and get the name. Enter a street,
and get those living on the street.
They also have
searches for area codes and zip codes, in both directions:
location to code, and code to location.
White
Pages is also the only one that I have found that allows
you to search without a full last name.
(All telephone
search sites I've seen allow you to search without a state,
except for anywho.com, which used to be the best, until
AT&T took it over, and it is now the worst.)
- Zaba Search
- This is a brand new site and many people have already
been condemning them for invasion of privacy. You can only
search by name, and it shows addresses, phone numbers, and
birth year. Their purpose is to sell you more information
about people. They gather information from more than just
telephone directories, obviously. So, you have unlisted
phone numbers presented. You get spouses who might not be in
telephone directories. A lot of the information could be old,
if the people have moved around. It does keep reducing the
information provided, though. For a good write-up about them go
to
Snopes on ZabaSearch
There is another site
People Finders
that provides the age, city, and names of others at same
address. I had not found any errors at ZabaSearch, but
I have seen errors in age and name spelling at People
Finders. I have found some people at People Finders
that I could not find at ZabaSearch .
Both of these sites exist in order to try to sell you more
information. That part I don't endorse.
- Classmates
- If you are looking for old friends, you might find them
at Classmates.com . People have to register
themselves here, within their high school graduating class.
If you join, which has an annual fee now, you can send your
lost friends e-mail.
If you don't join, at least you might
find a female's current name to research in the previous
mentioned phone books. The females enter their name at
graduation, and you can get their current name for free. You
can also just register your name, and maybe others will
contact you. Another nice feature, is a search for a name, in
case you do not know which school they went to.
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