When You Choose a Personal Search Service, Here’s What to Look For

If you decide to try out a personal search database, here are the things I’ve found important to consider during a review…

1. Free versus Paid

I've been disappointed by the free services. Their main concern seems to be to try and get you to click on some of the pay-per-click ads they’re displaying - so they can make a little money.

2. Speed

You want a service that responds quickly. Make sure you try it out. A fun test is to do a search on yourself. You get to check speed and accuracy!

3. Proprietary Database

If a service compiles their own database, they must be fairly successful. It’s costly to build and maintain. Such well-funded providers are much more likely to stay around. From a usability standpoint, it’s better too. You get a single interface that you can quickly learn.

And I’ve never seen a free service that has its own database. Most of the free services I've checked out are really just link farms - they just point you at some public or government database.

4. Training and Support

Be sure you can easily learn to use any service you choose. Actually, you’ll find the better services are intuitive - how to search will make sense as soon as you look at it. But better services will also provide extra, in-depth searching. If you ever need the extra, it might require you dig into it a bit before you can fully use it. Just make sure your service has easy, accessible ways to learn, like tutorials.

And don’t ignore support. Sooner or later you’ll have questions or there will be something you need help to get resolved. It’s best if they offer free, live support.

Final Word

Join the millions using the web to track down old friends and new friends. But make it easier on yourself by using a People Search service rather than a general search engine. Have fun finding out exactly what did become of your old friend (or even your old, not-so-friendly ex…)