Ad placement to find people – Lost friends – Family members – Missed connections

If you’re looking for someone you want to find and reconnect with, there are many ways you can search for them. Facebook, Linkedin, white pages and search engines to name a few. All great and free resources. But what if you only have a first name? Nameless? Or you just can’t find them with the name you have? It makes the game more difficult.

There are some websites where you can place ads to find the people you are looking for. If you choose to go this route, there are some guidelines you should follow for your own safety and the safety of the people you are looking for.

On free websites of any kind; always check if they share your information with third parties, you can usually find the information in the terms of use. If they do, it means they can sell/rent user information to advertisers. If this is the case; do not sign up with your “main/main” email address. Open a free email account, Yahoo, Google, Bing are all good options. That way, if your email address is sold, you won’t get spam on your primary email account. But be sure to check the email account from time to time for legitimate responses. I personally like signing up as an 85 year old man from Romania, it totally messes up their market segmentation when they sell the listings.

Always double check your email address when signing up for a website to make sure it is correct. This is how people will contact you. It would be a shame if people search goes off the rails because of a wrong email address.

Some of the most common errors in email addresses:

– Emails do not start with www.

– Yahoo has regional email addresses: only Americans have.com, all others have country codes, eg yahoo.co.ph, yahoo.ca.

– Add the email address of the website you registered on to your address book; this ensures that emails sent to you from the website are not blocked by spam filters.

Some tips for placing ads to find people online; The tips are for your protection and privacy, as well as for the people you are looking for.

– Do not put your email address, phone number or home address on the Internet for all to see. Almost all classified ad sites have a form that people fill out to respond to ads or use “anonymous” email addresses. That way, the person responding doesn’t see your email address or direct contact information. Why is it a bad idea to put contact information on any website? Spam bots. They are programs that go through web pages on the Internet in search of displayed email addresses and phone numbers, collect and store them. They are then sold to deceptive sellers, you may start receiving a lot of spam and/or unsolicited phone calls. For your own protection, never display your contact information on the Internet. For the safety of the person you are looking for, do not list any old contact information you have for them, especially a phone number. Although they may not have the same email or phone number anymore; someone else may have it and wouldn’t appreciate it being shown to the world.

– When writing an ad; Put in enough information for the person you’re looking for to recognize themselves, but not enough to put them in danger. No one needs to know your birthday (month and year is more than enough) nor do they need to know your Social Security number. Identity theft is on the rise, you want to make sure you don’t give information to thieves.

– Don’t put anything in an ad that might embarrass the person you’re looking for. The goal is not to humiliate or publicly denounce someone for something, it’s to find it. If you have issues with them, you can discuss them privately once they contact you.

– If you are looking for a lost love… Keep in mind that he may have moved on and is in a relationship. Professing your undying love would not only be embarrassing for you, it could put you in jeopardy, or at the very least, you’ll have to have an awkward conversation with your other half and/or family.

The theme here is being respectful and safe. Many websites don’t approve ad content before it’s posted for all to see. If your goal is really to find a person, your chances are much better if you don’t attack, shame, or share too much information. A good guideline is if you don’t want to see something about yourself on the internet, don’t put it in an ad.