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Using search engines to find people
Web based search engines provide a window into the content of over 8 billion documents located on the internet. These range from web pages, through Word documents, and pdf files. If a person is listed within one of these documents, then you may be able to find them through a search engine.
Australian searches including Google Australia, NineMSN, and Yahoo! Australia offer searches with a focus on Australian documents, and those with content relevant to Australia. Whilst there are other Australian searches available, they pale in both significance and relevance when compared to the three already mentioned.
International Searches may also be used, as there are no boundaries on the internet. The person you are seeking may be an active participant on International forums and sites with no specific relevance to Australia. The issue on an international scale is of course the sheer volumes of results that may be returned for a persons name.
People Search maintains a multi-search form for both Australian and international search engines. It allows you to type your search once, then run your search using a variety of search engines. Visit the All-In-One Search Engines page.
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When using a search engine to locate people in Australia, it is important that you first gain an understanding of how searches work, and what tools and commands are available to you to aid in your search.
The first step is to consider how you will format your search keywords or phrases. You are looking to return documents that contain details and information about the person you are seeking, hence you must use the terms most likely to be found on the documents themselves. For example, when people write a mailing address on the internet, they are much more likely to use the abbreviated version of a state. For example, people will write QLD, and not Queensland. This becomes an important issue when searching, as terms such as Queensland may not be found on any document on a web site at all, and hence a highly relevant page may never be returned for your search.
Advanced searching can aid you in returning more relevant results for your search. Each search engine has a wide variety of options available, and many can be used across all search engines. Phrase matching can be used to qualify words in a specific order and ensure they are located together. For example, a search for John Doe will return results from documents with both John, and Doe, located anywhere on the page. A search using the phrase "John Doe" however will only return results with the phrase John Doe written as is. Next time you visit a search engine, try clicking the "advanced" or "help" links, and you'll find a plethora of commands and tools available to you.
Nicknames, when known, provide a good option when searching. There are many people making use of online discussion forums to talk with others about topics that interest them. Whilst the number of people using actual names is small, those using nicknames is high.
Updated: 26th May, 2005
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