My Findings for Recruiters using People Search Engines

I mentioned last week that I was going to have a quick look at some people search engines.  What I'm talking about here are sites where you enter the name of a person and hopefully find everything there is about them which is listed on the internet.  I'm not looking at sites where you can do name identification (business directories, social networking sites, etc).

In my very unscientific, and quite brief, study I've searched for three specific people on each people search site.  I've used my own name as I'm the only Louise Triance (LT) I've ever come across on the web or in real life (I'm sure someone will now correct me!).  I've also searched for a researcher I know called Catherine Wade-Thomas (CWT).  Catherine has a "behind the scenes" role and has a limited presence on the web.  Finally I've searched for Tim Elkington (TE).  As MD of an internet business and with a unusual but not unique name I was hoping to get quite a few results from searching for him.

Spock
"a people search application that relies on the contributions of its members to create relevant results. Spock aims to provide a search result for every person in the world so users can discover information about people in their life."

LT - Provided a text description from my LinkedIn profile.  Gave reference to my website and blog.  Results were Very limited.
CWT - Hardly any information.  Just that she's based in the UK and a link to her LinkedIn profile.
TE - Gave a choice of three Tim Elkington's although it was easy to identify the correct one.  However, again, just a link to his LinkedIn profile.

I thought the results from using Spock were very weak.

Wink
"Where people find people."

LT - Listed my blog, website, linkedin, zoominfo and fast pitch profiles.  No links to articles or other blogs mentioning my name.
CWT - Listed her LinkedIn and Ecademy profiles.  Also gave a link to a PR about her joining her current search firm.
TE - Gave a choice of two Tim Elkingtons - but there was only his LinkedIn profile for the correct Tim.

The results for Catherine and me were OK. 

Pipl
"The most comprehensive people search on the web"

LT - Good results for me.  Gave four "Quick Facts" which were all accurate ("..is Editor of the ukrecruiter newsletter - a weekly email publication targeted at the UK recruitment industry, etc").  There were six references (including jigsaw, facebook, zoominfo, one erroneous one for jaiku) and 628 web results.  This bit was powered by google and included posts on blogs, discussion forums, etc. 
CWT - Only found one reference for her which was to her Facebook page.  There were five results from the web search.
TE - Gave three "quick facts".  However, one of them wasn't about him (but it was easy to identify as such).  None of the references (photo library and myspace account) where him. 

I like the "quick facts" and references. However, Pipl doesn't attempt to separate out different people with the same name.  You would need to be very careful to check that the person was the right one.  The web results are from the Google search engine - more on that later.

Ziki
"a people search engine that helps you find everyone online and connect with them for free."

LT - 65 results including all my listings on social networking sites, lots of references on other peoples blogs and a couple of out of date listings on directories (which I've now updated). 
CWT - 4 results; two of the same press release, one her LinkedIn profile and one of her Friendsreunited profile (which I didn't find reference to elsewhere).
TE - 68 results.  However, it was all returned in a jumble; some referenced the "real Tim Elkington" and some were other Tims.  Knowing Tim's background meant I could ascertain from the title and overview of each link which was likely to be him.

Ziki was very good for "unique names". However, they make no attempt to split people with the same name into different individuals.

ZoomInfo
"the premier business information search engine, with profiles on more than 37 million people and 3.5 million companies. ZoomInfo delivers a single site for quick and easy access to in-depth information on industries, companies, people, products, services and jobs."

LT - There were four Louise Triance's on Zoominfo.  However all were me.  On the main record there were to about 50 mentions on the web and a (dodgy) photo of me.  You have to register (which is free) to see all the references.  However, about 30 were dead links to recruiting-usa.  There were a couple of websites I was on that I didn't know about.
CWT - very limited, just one 1 press release.
TE - There were four people called Tim Elkington.  For his profile they listed his employment history (which was probably taken off his LinkedIn profile) and 80 web references.   

This was very weak for Catherine, OK for me and great for finding out about Tim.

Google

LT - 929 results (all referencing me!)
CWT - 5 results (all her)
TE - 9,810 results (well, I'm guessing these aren't all about "our" Tim.)

Google is great for "unique" names.

When I mentioned that I was planning a review of People Search Engines I got a couple of emails saying that in the US Whitepages.com is a great resource.  However, they aren't covering the UK at present.  I'm sure there may be other sites that recruiters use for people search.  If you leave a comment I can add them to the review.

So, my advice when it comes to "people search engines" would be to Google (using other keywords where necessary to ensure you have the correct person) and Zoominfo everyone.  Then look at Pipl and Ziki for "unique names".   Of course, and this is where it starts to take time, you should also search for each person on LinkedIn, Ecademy, Xing, Friendsreunited, Facebook, Myspace, Viadeo, and the list goes on!

Comments

[Rupert Schiessl]

Hi Louise!

Nice benchmark!
Sign up to Ziki and we'll not only distinguish your name from other users but also make you appear on the top of Google's, Yahoo!'s or MSN's search engine listings for free ;-)

[Steffen]

In Germany just have started a people search engine too: www.yasni.de

It's in closed beta test phase currently but will launch soon.

We think not only quantity is important but also quality - therefore Google results are filtered and many sources are crawled which are missed at Google. At the moment its working only for people within Germany and Austria but we're working on other country versions.

[Cell Phone trace]

Hi,

I am a aware of a nice site that has the ability to do a Cell Phone Trace and other reverse lookup features.

Give it a shot. Just my 2 cents worth.

http://www.trace-a-phone-number.com

Best,
Glenn

[Searchboth]

Searchboth.net is the first site to place google and yahoo side by side on one split screen. The web site takes the user's query and creates a browser window with two frames, with the results from Yahoo! on one side and those from google on the other. It has completely end up the hassles involved while searching different search engines at the same time.

[Reverse Cell Phone Lookup]

Another good resource to find people's information is http://www.reversecellphonelistings.com

Hope this helps?