By: Shally Steckerl, Founder, JobMachine.net
There’s been a lot of noise and chatter lately about “people search engines” particularly those claiming to get deep-web data. Most of them, like Spock, are nothing but over-hyped "mee too" sites which return less than what I can more quickly and accurately get from my own searches. Thus, it hasn’t been worth my time to experiment with them, until now.
I’d like to introduce you to my new friend – pipl
Pipl claims to be the most comprehensive people search on the web. It won’t completely replace looking folks up on databases like LinkedIn, JigSaw, or Zoominfo. Nor will it replace lookups like Argali or Zabasearch, btut it will make a researcher’s life much easier. Here’s how:Pipl finds stuff search engines can’t find.
How… you may ask? Its not depending on an index of historically archived data, but instead it retrieves data in real-time from dynamic content sites. When you give it a name to find it will log into databases that are not indexed by search engines and proceeds to extract facts, contact details and other relevant information from personal profiles, member directories, scientific publications, court records and numerous other deep-web sources.
What you get is a simple, easy to read, one-page summary of highly relevant information about your target person. Try it and you will be shocked on how much is out there. For example:
To test it out I first searched for myself. It found my birthdate (year), contact details from Yahoo People, MyPeopleSearch, PeopleData and the Google Phonebook. All the data is correct, and two of the entries are current.
It also located my Friendser profile, my MySpace page, and information on my house. In addition it summarizes “Quick Facts” about me as follows:
Shally Steckerl is a talent acquisition strategist, speaker, and recruitment consultant originally from Colombia, South America, now residing in Atlanta, Georgia... is the founder and Chief CyberSleuth of JobMachine, Inc., the premier provider of sourcing consulting services and research training... is the Research Manager for Microsoft's Central Sourcing Organization and Founder of JobMachine.net, a leading edge recruitment intelligence website...
To put together the summary it drew information about me from SHRM, EMA, a number of conferences where I’ve spoken and about 10 other places. Pipl then went on to reveal a personal Yahoo address that few people know about, my profile on LinkedIn, my Zoominfo page (via A9), numerous blog posts and Google Groups messages I authored, as well as this blog, my company site and my bio page.
All that in a few short seconds, and without askimg me to register for an account and invite ten friends!
