Google Tip: Find Phone Numbers and Addresses

Oscar Sodani is a founder of Help2Go and owner of Help2Go Networks, an IT consulting firm in the Washington D.C. area. Oscar holds the CISSP certification as well as industry certifications from Microsoft, Cisco and Novell.

From time to time, Google adds new features to their search engine and website. Some of these are cutting edge, others are low tech, but all are useful. My favorite new feature is the ability to search for US telephone numbers and addresses. Time to throw out your Yellow Pages and White Pages!

It works just like a search - go to www.google.com, and in the regular search box, type in a phone number, including area code. Bang! The Google results page will come back with the name and address the number belongs to.

You can also try with names and cities. For instance, I was recently ripped off by an eBay seller who sent me a much smaller hard drive than advertised. Thanks to PayPal, I had the name and city/state. I typed those into Google: first name last name city, state -- now I have the guy's home phone number, so it will be quite difficult for him to ignore my complaint.

It will work for names and zip codes, too. Plus, it also has some yellow pages features built in. I typed in "pizza" followed by my ZIP code, and up came a list of local pizza restaurants. Go to Google and see if your phone number is listed!

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