How to Find People on the Internet: A Cheat Sheet by Paul Myers |
Posted: October 2, 2022 |
Google searchGoogle's advanced search syntax can help you find the right person. For example: Use quotation marks to search for related words. A search for the name John Major without quotes returns 2 billion links, but most of them are irrelevant, they just mention John and the word major separately somewhere. And the same search query with quotes returns less than 2 million links, but they all contain exactly this expression, “John Major”. Use OR for keyword variations in your search term. For example, let's look for the co-pilot of German Wings Flight 9525. In the example above, you can find pages that list his hometown and one of two spellings of his username. Use site: to search within a domain or part of a URL. For example, you can limit your search to only sources from the Federal Aviation Service: Time travelSometimes you need to find information that has already been removed from the Internet, such as a deleted tweet, website or Facebook page. There are a number of tools that can help recover information. Search engine cache If the information has been removed recently and is still showing up in Google results, try clicking on the little black triangle next to the search results. You may be able to open a copy stored in the search server's cache. Although Andreas Ljubitz's Facebook page had been deleted at the time his name was made public, a copy still remained in Google's cache. Learn more about cloud partner navigator. Date Range Search Sometimes information about a person is deep under the latest news. To go back to a point in time before a major news item, click "Tools" and select a date range from the drop-down menu: Archives Online archives are a great tool for finding deleted or altered material. Among the best options: Archive is especially good for finding deleted posts and social media accounts. Archive finds the deleted Twitter account of Cesar Sayok, nicknamed "Magabomber" And also the Wayback Machine : a great way to find old content online. The Wayback Machine finds a 2012 GIJN website page. Image searchThe same photo can appear on many websites, often with different captions. By determining where an image is located online, information can be collected to identify the person in the image. Reverse Google image search can be accessed by clicking on the camera icon in the Google Images search field. Determining the right personSometimes the names are very common or incomplete - then it is best to collect as much information as possible about the person you are looking for. It includes everything that can be used to search the Internet and social networks. For effective search, think about the following nuances. Name:
Relatives:
Work:
Related places:
Email addresses:
Phone number:
Domain name registration:
Think also about what the person likes, what are their interests, activities and hobbies. People search toolsSome online resources collect personally identifiable information that can be searched.
Search in social networksPeople use different social networks for different aspects of their lives. Different networks will have different subscribers:
Twitter searchSee also our instructions on how to search Twitter with TweetDeck . Twitter has a very useful, flexible advanced search form. Other resources are available, including:
Facebook search
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|