The 5 Best Ways To Find People Online

In today’s digital age it can be relatively easy finding someone or information about someone utilizing public information. The trick is to get a piece of information, such as an email or phone number, finding out everything you can on that email or number and then taking that information and leveraging it to find out more information. The internet slang for this is called OSINT which literally means using public channels to find information on someone or something. You can read more about OSINT and where the term originated from here.

The methods I will be listing below can all be searched for and easily found on google and results can be leveraged to find more information on your subject. However, I do prefer this reverse lookup provider. If you’re wondering why you might need to do this in the first place, then you probably wouldn’t be reading this article. But a hypothetical situation for this could be endless. Let’s go over a few:

Reverse Address Lookup

Hypothetical #1: Your neighbor was recently kicked out of the unit next to you and now the apartment is up for sale. You have a new guy move in that just gives you creepy vibes and you don’t want to take any chances because you have a 6-year-old daughter - leaving you no choice but to find out who this person is and what they’re about.

Do they have any priors? Are they an inmate? How do you get their name to begin with? Luckily for you, property records are public information (if you know the address you can see the first and last name of the owner). There are plenty of sites that offer the ability to look up information on any residential or corporate address.

People Search

Hypothetical #2: You’ve performed the step above and were able to successfully acquire your neighbors first and last name, great. Now what? So now we have an address along with a first and last name. Now you can utilize what’s called a ‘people search’ to see if there is any online footprint of your neighbor. Generally, any accurate people search worth it’s weight in salt will require an address along with first/last name of the person you’re trying to find.

Generally, this will provide you with an assortment of information such as online profiles & usernames, email addresses, past residential addresses (even if they are out of state), employment history, and phone numbers. This is a huge step in the right direction, now we are ready to move on to the last two methods.

Reverse Email Lookup

This is another great lookup tool that can be found online. It takes an email address and is able to find out detailed employment information and possibly phone numbers. The reason for this is due to sites like linkedin.com selling information on its customers.

For example, you need an email to register for the site, well that email is now associated with all your employment history on your public LinkedIn profile. So, once you’ve obtained your hypothetical neighbors employment history, you can make sure he’s not some weirdo without a job or the type of lifestyle they live. For example, if they are a teacher then it’s safe to assume that they are probably not a registered sex offender.

Reverse Phone Lookup

Probably one of the oldest methods for finding information quickly on somebody is by pulling the caller ID of a phone number to swiftly obtain a first & last name. People still do it all the time to this day. Say for instance you get a girl’s number off a dating app but want to know what her Facebook is so you can see more pictures of her to verify you aren’t being cat fished.

Reverse Username Search

This is personally my favorite method, but unfortunately the most uncommon method used since there is a lack of reverse lookup providers offering this feature. Essentially, what it allows you to do is search any online username, such as Instagram, Tinder, Plenty of Fish, and other dating/social media apps and will give you that person’s full name, phone number, and email. In my opinion, this is what makes username lookup’s so desirable – taking a user profile from a dating app and finding out if they are a real person or even more importantly, a catfish.

Michael Kelly is a Freelancer Writer, Entrepreneur and passionate blogger. A writer by day and a reader by night.