Doing a people search via a specialized website is the optimal approach because these sites retrieve a maximum amount of information. While you can use Google or another standard search engine, it will take a long time. It’s also not the best at finding people because only indexed pages are analyzed.
Looking up an old friend or scoping out a potential partner is best done through a people search website. Here are the five best resources for doing a people search online.
1. TruthFinder
TruthFinder is a people search and background check site, which is popular mainly thanks to its in-depth reports. It collects personal data from court and police records, social media, and more. Its services include address lookups, dark web searches, and reverse phone lookups. You can also do a screening of your own background and find out what details are available about you online.
On the minus side, this tool is a bit pricey.
2. Free People Search
On that note, price is one area in which this people search engine excels, with some features even available for free. Free People Search is a lesser-known site with a briefer history than the other choices, but it gives access to abundant contact information, public records, background checks, and much more. The reports are easy to scan.
The service provides unlimited searches and reports. It retrieves data from marriage records, criminal records, civil records, and more and gives details about liens, bankruptcies, and lawsuits. It’s fast and easy to find people using the search service for whatever reason – a long-lost family member, an ex, etc. The site offers address lookup, reverse phone lookup, and other features.
3. Intelius
Intelius has a track record of comprehensiveness and accuracy in people searches. Users like the distinctive presentation style of the reports, especially the web-like chart that shows how people in a report are related.
Among the services Intelius provides are reverse phone lookups, email lookups, criminal records, and social media searches. Reports are generated quickly. The tool also retrieves information about education history. The pricing tiers could have been more transparent.
4. Spokeo
Spokeo is an affordable tool which is limited to the US, like the others on this list. Its focus is on social networks and publicly accessible data. It checks the White Pages and other public databases to retrieve the information desired.
You can use Spokeo to look people up by name, phone number, physical address, and email address. The tool generates automatic updates on searches. Unfortunately, it’s overly reliant on social media information, and its government record scans are limited. All in all, it offers good value for money.
5. Instant Checkmate
The final choice scores high on accuracy and is transparent about pricing. It is the final choice because you have to pay for a monthly subscription. There is no option to purchase one-time reports. If you pay for a three-month subscription, there is a slight discount.
Once in a while, Instant Checkmate has trial periods, which are symbolically priced. You can use it for a few days for just $1. You must remember to cancel, though.
Instant Checkmate includes information about marriages and divorces as well as criminal record details. If you’re looking yourself up, this is quite useful because it flags inaccurate information, and you can have it removed.
You can also use this service to find people’s previous addresses, phone numbers, email addresses, associates, and family members.
Frequently asked questions about people search sites
These sites normally collect data from government databases of publicly available information. Many of them search public forums and social media. One of the most frequent questions relates to data accuracy. It’s not a good idea to be 100% reliant on the data. Accuracy improves if you cross-reference with other search sites and do additional research on your own.
The lack of a guarantee of accuracy is one reason why the FCRA does not allow employers to use some search sites for job-related purposes.
Another frequent question is whether you can find a person’s information for free. People search sites have few free features. If you don’t want to pay anything, you can search Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn, as well as specialized alumni sites like classmates.com. Google makes it possible to perform a reverse image search.
