Google Can Tell You Who's Calling
Posted: Sun May 25, 2008 7:03 am
Ever have an unknown-to-you number show up on your caller ID over and over again and want to know who it is? Short of, well, answering the phone and asking the caller, your best bet is to ask Google. Just enter it in this format: (123) 456-7890, i.e. with the area code in parentheses followed by a space and the subsequent sets of numbers separated by a hyphen. Ordinarily Google ignores punctuation, but when you enter it like this Google recognizes it as a phone number and does a reverse phone book lookup. If it finds the number in its phone book, it'll tell you who it thinks it belongs to.
If that fails, Google will return its usual search results, but that can be just as useful, because Google will show you web pages that contain that string of numbers. If the number belongs to a business the business' site might appear. Also, several sites like 800Notes and WhoCallsMe? are dedicated to cataloging mysterious calls and if your mystery number has shown up on many other people's caller IDs, chances are some of them have logged the calls on one of those sites, and maybe even discovered who the caller is. Google indexes several of these sites and they'll often appear at the top of your search results. If Google seems to be showing you pages that contain only some of the numbers you entered, or the numbers in the wrong order, put them inside quotation marks.
Finally, if none of the above give you answers, Google can at least tell you what geographical region the number belongs to: Just punch in the area code by itself and Google will tell you where it's from.
If that fails, Google will return its usual search results, but that can be just as useful, because Google will show you web pages that contain that string of numbers. If the number belongs to a business the business' site might appear. Also, several sites like 800Notes and WhoCallsMe? are dedicated to cataloging mysterious calls and if your mystery number has shown up on many other people's caller IDs, chances are some of them have logged the calls on one of those sites, and maybe even discovered who the caller is. Google indexes several of these sites and they'll often appear at the top of your search results. If Google seems to be showing you pages that contain only some of the numbers you entered, or the numbers in the wrong order, put them inside quotation marks.
Finally, if none of the above give you answers, Google can at least tell you what geographical region the number belongs to: Just punch in the area code by itself and Google will tell you where it's from.
