Find E-Mail Addresses
Finding addresses is not easy. There are no good directories for finding e-mail addresses. Spam and concerns about privacy caused what few there used to be to shrivel and die. Infospace.com may be the only one that offers some chance of finding the person.
You will have better luck finding the person through a web search especially if that person has spoken at a conference, has participated in public listservs, or keeps a web site or weblog.
However, the best way to get a person's e-mail address continues to be to phone and ask. Telephone directories containing address, phone number and often other services, such as maps, have become an essential reference tool. These directories draw their data from the white and yellow page listings created by the telephone companies and other suppliers. Business listings often have links for e-mail and web site.
All major search portals - AOL, Ask, Google, MSN, Yahoo - will have some form of People Finder and Business Yellow Pages.
E-Mail Addresses
Infospace
Infospace has specialized in people finding for many years, offering white
and yellow pages and a self-registration process for e-mail addresses.
People who want to be found would probably register here. Addresses may
also be picked up from web-based services such as Yahoo Mail. Infospace
is careful not to reveal the exact e-mail address.
http://www.infospace.com/home/white-pages/email-search
Infospace partners with other people-finding services, most particularly Reunion.com, for finding classmates, and Intelius, a for-fee investigative service.
Yahoo People gets e-mail addresses from registrations at Yahoo.
Surprisingly, you'll see the address but not necessarily the person's
profile.
http://people.yahoo.com
Find Addresses at emailaddresses.com offers some leads
to finding e-mail addresses through web directories and specialist sites.
However, the list isn't entirely accurate - some directories have dropped
their e-mail listings.
http://www.emailaddresses.com/email_find.htm
White Pages and Business Directories
United States and Canada
AnyWho is the AT&T service for address and phone number directories
for people and businesses in the United States. The International page
has a good collection of links for white and yellow pages in other parts
of the world.
http://www.anywho.com
Superpages from Verizon offers one of the best directories to
businesses and residences in the United States and Canada. There are shopping
guides to cities throughout North America and links to directories worldwide.
It's excellent for phone numbers.
http://www.superpages.com
Switchboard is owned by Infospace. It has US white and yellow
pages, reverse lookup on a phone number, and several search aids for finding
maps, businesses and people. Data is from Acxiom.
http://www.switchboard.com
Whitepages is the leading directory for residential
and business numbers in North America, covering the United States and
Canada. It has extra search options for reverse address,
reverse phone, zip code and postal code lookups. There are links to directories
for other countries on the International
page.
http://www.whitepages.com
Yellow.ca www.yellow.ca
Yellow.ca has more than 1.2 million business listings and 14 million
residential listings from coast to coast. Registered users (registration is
free) may get web site and e-mail addresses for some businesses.
Yellow
Pages Group is king of the telphone directories in Canad, owning Superpages
Canada and and Canada 411. It also supplies Google and Yahoo Canada
with directory information. There is a very handy proximity search (services
near an address), and map directions.
http://www.yellowpages.ca
International Directories
Added March 2006
International White and Yellow Pages is a good starting
point for finding directories in other countries.
http://www.wayp.com/
Phone Books of the World is a map view to countries.
http://www.phonebookoftheworld.com/
Infobel World comes from Kapitol, a telephone and business
directory electronic publisher, and provides for direct query interface
for many countries and links to other directories for the rest.
http://www.infobel.com/world
The Meta-Search
Argali White and Yellow (www.argali.com):
Argali is desktop software that aggregates information from several phone and
email directories along with maps and weather. Mainly U.S. Application is
automatically updated when changes are available. Requires Windows 98 + and
Internet Explorer 4.0 +.
Collections of Directories
NedSite: The Ultimate People Finder, from Amsterdam, links
to email directories, phone, fax - worldwide. Also Celebrities, Military
and other special categories. Goes well beyond e-mail addresses.
http://www.nedsite.nl/search/people.htm
PeopleSpot has e-mail, phone directories, reverse lookup,
zip codes and many other tools for learning about people and finding them.
http://www.peoplespot.com
Exercise: Find Yourself
- Go to Infospace
(www.infospace.com) to look for your own name. Just to prove that
it can work, look for Gwen Harris in Toronto, Ontario.
-
Use a phone directory to find your own number. If you have an unlisted
number, use the reverse lookup to confirm that it really is unlisted.
- Do a vanity search for yourself through ZoomInfo and Google.
| Web Search - Added March 2006 Often, you can find an e-mail address or contact information from
a web page. Use Google or another engine with a large index. Enter
the person's name along with a place, company name, or profession
- something that will distinguish the person from others. "jimmy stewart" If you know the company name, look for an e-mail address at the company website. It may tell you the format used and you might be able to guess the address of the person you want to reach. ZoomInfo.com scours Web sources for people's names and picks up information about them. It is excellent for getting a rough profile about people in business or the professions who are mentioned somewhere on the Web. |
Where to next?
One day you will receive an email that screams VIRUS ALERT. What should you do?