Wednesday, November 12, 2008

Search For a Gmail Address Using Online Resources

The newest giant in the world of free or low cost web based email is Gmail. Backed by the billion dollar company Google, you would think they could afford a simple mechanism to look up any Gmail address in their database. Alas, no such search tool exists, so those individuals looking to find a long lost Gmail email address are left trying to come up with inventive ways to track down their friends. While none of these methods are guaranteed to work, they are likely your best bet.

Assuming you know the person, you can head to various websites that you either know they use or you think it is likely that they use. It could be a site that has to do with one of their main interests or it could be a site for gaming or even social networking. These sites often have member search features where you can look up a person's name or screen name in hopes of finding an email address. It is still a shot in the dark, but some of these sites, like Facebook, print a users email address right on their page, so assuming you can find them, it should be right there. If the person you are looking for belongs to any clubs or organizations online, you can visit the webpage for that group and perform a member search. Often times, each member will have their own page with basic contact information listed so finding an email address this way should be straight forward.

If you do not know the person you are searching for very well, then you don't have many options, other than a simple search engine query. If you are looking for a better way to search a Gmail address, you should try a reverse email search online. You would think that since Gmail is one of the most popular email providers in the world, you would be able to find Gmail addresses easier, but it takes some serious searching to do so, and services that are dedicated to performing optimized reverse email searches can save you quite a bit of time in the process.

Lindsay has been writing about web applications for 4 years and is tracking the latest trends in web development. You can check out her latest project at http://www.reverseemaildetective.com

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