{"id":23111,"date":"2021-02-22T11:37:49","date_gmt":"2021-02-22T19:37:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.spokeo.com\/compass\/?p=23111"},"modified":"2022-04-13T12:23:45","modified_gmt":"2022-04-13T20:23:45","slug":"why-you-should-stop-googling-people","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.spokeo.com\/compass\/why-you-should-stop-googling-people\/","title":{"rendered":"There\u2019s a Better Way: Why You Should Stop Googling People"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

What happens when you type your own name into Google?  Chances are, you\u2019ll find some pertinent information about yourself (if you scroll down far enough) but you\u2019ll also see a lot of people who aren\u2019t you.  You might find a namesake who\u2019s a much-loved teacher and coach, a recently deceased birdwatcher, or an actor whose claim to fame is a credit on IMDB as \u201cirate customer #2.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Choosing between them is easy when you already know the right answer (yourself!), but it\u2019s a lot harder when you don\u2019t.  That\u2019s why you should stop Googling people, and use a specialized people-search tool like Spokeo. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

How Google Changed Searching<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The internet was still in its awkward adolescent stage back in the \u201990s, when Google came along.  It was growing so rapidly that the early tools people used to find interesting websites, like hand-curated directories, simply couldn\u2019t keep up. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The earliest search engines were relatively crude, ranking results by easily manipulated measures, like the number of times a keyword or phrase occurred on a page.  Google co-founder Larry Page, then a grad student at Stanford, reasoned that examining the links between pages<\/a> would give a better measure of a site\u2019s quality and pertinence. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

That initial insight, combined with a handful of other technological advancements<\/a>, quickly made Google the world\u2019s dominant search engine.  That being said, despite its prowess, it is only a generalist tool \u2014<\/p>\n\n\n\n

 a digital \u201cSwiss army knife,\u201d if you will \u2014 and specialized search tools are much better at targeted niches like people searches. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Why You Should Stop Googling People<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Google\u2019s biggest limitation is that it only searches and indexes a relatively small portion of the information that\u2019s out there.  There\u2019s a ton of publicly available information that is skipped by the search giant, either for technical reasons (not everything can be \u201ccrawled\u201d by the company\u2019s bots<\/a>) or because it\u2019s paywalled. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

As it happens, those information sources are often the ones that contain the very information \u2014 everything from property records to social media \u201chandles\u201d \u2014 that can help you track down the person you\u2019re looking for. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

A further limitation of Google is that, because it\u2019s a general-purpose tool, you\u2019ll need to sift the search results that are<\/em> pertinent from a very long list of others, which aren\u2019t.  Serious power users can manipulate search filters or use custom-crafted scripts to speed the process, but not everyone has those skills.  For the rest of us, it comes down to the old-fashioned drudge work of slogging through thousands of results to find the handful we wanted.  It\u2019s a limited number of needles in a very<\/em> large haystack.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Use the Right Tools for the Job<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s much easier to find the person you\u2019re looking for when you use specialized people-search tools like Spokeo. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Suppose you have just an email address, and want to track down the person behind it.  On Google, all you\u2019ll get is results where that email is visible on a publicly linkable page.  If you use Spokeo\u2019s reverse email lookup<\/a> instead, you\u2019ll get a much richer set of results.  You\u2019ll see the full range of publicly available information for that person, which \u2014 in a given instance \u2014 might include anything from phone numbers to a physical address, property ownership, age or even (if you\u2019re checking out your new crush<\/a>) marital status and profiles from dating and social media sites. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

You can leverage that information, in turn, to get a really complete picture. Searching the person\u2019s name, physical address or phone number can bring up other details, such as property records or additional emails, and by the time you\u2019ve worked through those you\u2019ll know pretty clearly whether it\u2019s the person you\u2019re looking for. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Spokeo Has Your Back<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

There are as many reasons to use people search as there are Spokeo users.  You might just want to reconnect with old friends<\/a> or track down a long-lost cousin<\/a>, or on a more serious note, you might have concerns that you\u2019re being \u201ccatfished\u201d<\/a> or scammed online<\/a>.  Spokeo\u2019s search tools can definitely help you ease your mind, or find the person you\u2019re looking for. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The world, and especially the online world, is a big and confusing place.  Where your online and offline lives intersect, Spokeo\u2019s goal is to bring openness and transparency to your interactions with others.  We can help you find the information you need to live confidently in the modern world, no matter how tech-savvy (or otherwise) you may be. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sources:<\/h3>\n\n\n\n