How to Do a Google People Search

Learn how to find someone free by doing a Google people search.

How many times have you wanted to find someone that you lost touch with? Or maybe you want to do a little background check on someone?

Well, Google makes it incredibly easy to find someone. No there isn't a Google people search engine but by using the regular search feature you are essentially doing the same thing.

Difficulty: Easy

Instructions

1. Obviously the first step is to go to google.com. Once you are there you will want to do a search on the person's name. Make sure to put the name in quotes like so, "John Doe". What this will do is give you a list of every known record on the internet with that name.

2. Now it gets a little more difficult to find someone using a google people search. If the person you searched for has a common name you are going to get a ton of results. Hopefully this won't be the case for you but if it is we need to start narrowing it down. Try to think of anything else you might know about the person.
   
   Type in quotes something else you may know like an old phone number like so, "John Doe" AND "707-555-1212" or you can try it without the AND in between to give you results with and without the added information.
   
   Don't forget to try other things like states and cities. For example, "John Doe" AND Iowa or "John Doe" AND "new york city".

3. Another tip you can use is to a Google people search of social networking sites. Click on the advanced section next to the google search box. In there you will see a section named "Search within a site or domain:". In that box put in some common social networking sites like myspace.com, linkedin.com, facebook.com. What this will do is search for that name on those particular websites.

4. If you are still trying to find information on someone and you don't know their name but you know their phone number you can do the exact same thing listed in step 1. If the phone number has been published on the internet chances are Google will find it. Obviously this is much easier with a business than a private citizen.

5. You can also use these types of searches to find someone's email or address or SSN. Just search for terms associated with the information about the person that you do have.

6. Doing a Google people search is quite easy. What's hard is finding someone with little to know internet footprint. If you can't find someone using Google your next bet is to use a paid search feature. These searches will dig through public records to help you find someone. You should have a better idea now on how to find someone on the internet.