Have you ever heard people use the phrase "I Googled my girlfriend or I Googled him". What they are really saying is I did a people search. Studies have shown that up to 30% of all searches done on the largest search engines like Yahoo, Google and Bing are people search queries.
One of the best ways to find people online is to use a people search engine. There are many companies offering these type of services; some offer thier searches for free and and some are for purely premium paid for services. The most established companies in this field offer a hybrid approach where certain information is free and other typically deeper information is paid for.
Free People Search
Most people search companies make their money by providing premium services that provide deep and detailed background information on an individual. It has however, become standard practice for the better companies to provide what they call "teaser" information. This free teaser information can be very useful when trying to find people or doing research on an individual.
You are normally presented a list of all the individuals that satisfy the search criteria you entered. The purpose of this free teaser data is two-fold, firstly, it allows you to hone in on the individual you are searching for; and importantly, it is provided to entice you into purchasing a detailed background check report.
Just because, the teaser data is free does not mean it is not useful and comprehensive. While all companies may vary their teaser data, you would expect to find at least the persons' full names, age, cities they have lived in and some people who they are associated with. Another valuable piece of free information available, but not commonly provided, is the individuals associations with businesses. As part of the free teaser data you can see what businesses the individual has or is associated with.
Additionally, as part of the free teaser results, you will be shown a portion of what other information is available if you choose their premium services. For e.g. you might see check marks under the date of birth, email addresses, phone or other columns indicating that the information is available for a fee.
Paid Services
Even though each company has optimized their sales funnel to provide a slew of different products and services; they all essentially providing similar types of information. A word of caution, however, even though the type of information is the same across all these companies be aware that the quality and depth of the information can vary dramatically.
For roughly the same fee at different companies, the breadth (what type of information they provide), depth (history) and currency of (how up to date) the information is materially different depending on which company you use. The better companies will clearly lay out the benefits and details of their reports. Also, if you are considering purchasing a report ensure that you look at the sample reports to get a good understanding of the format and information for the product or service you are purchasing.
Most comprehensive background reports will include a detailed history with full addresses and phone numbers of the individual and depending on the product purchased; you could get email addresses, assessed property values, person's age and date of birth, liens, judgments, bankruptcies, aliases, marriages, divorces, death searches, etc.
As you can see there is a lot of information provided for these premium services, so you can see why depth is important; the larger the databases they are searching the greater the chance of a longer history and higher probability that you will find the information you are seeking.
