It used to be that everyone had a standard phone in their home and locating a number or address was a matter of opening the yellow pages and finding their name. It is often more complicated now that cell phones are widely used and many people do not even have home phones, and if they do their number may be unlisted.

Even with the development of caller ID on most home phones, a lot of numbers may appear without an identifying name and there are ways for callers to block their details from coming up. Reverse phone lookup providers have stepped up to these changing demands to offer a very valuable service to resourceful phone users.

There are two typical functions for lookup services.

Searching for Names

If you are receiving calls from someone and only a number comes up on your caller ID, or you need to identify cellular phone callers, reverse phone lookup directories can help you find out the name registered to the number of concern. Just by typing in the phone number you will be able to identify whoever is initiating the phone calls in question.

People needing lookup directories include those wanting to identify a number often phoning their spouse or teenager's cell phone, since there is no phone book for cell phone numbers. Others may use lookup directories when they want to find a name listed to a home phone that may be unpublished. Whenever you have a number but don't know who it is connected to, a reverse phone lookup website can assist you.

Finding Addresses

The other common purpose is to find an address for someone, whether you know the name of the person or not. Once you plug into the contact information linked with a certain phone number most services will give additional information as well, such as the address of the home phone or the address associated with a cell phone number.

This may not be an everyday need for some people, but it does have its benefits in some situations. For example, take a parent needing to find a teenager who has run away or has not returned home well past curfew. If they can come up with numbers from the teenager's bedroom or cell phone a lookup directory could quickly uncover addresses and names of locations the teenager may be at that time.

Other situations may be searching for addresses to send out party invitations to your child's peers. If you have their phone number you can find their address and get the invite in the mail without calling and tracking down other busy people.

Lookup websites can also deliver a connection to other various types of data, like income brackets and address histories, and one site even gives a map with an estimated pinpoint of the most current location.

There is a nominal price for any up to date reverse phone lookup website, but if your business or personal situation requires certain information it is worth the money in the end. The fee is unavoidable because this variety of information is not easy or completely free to research, collect, and store, so dispensing it on demand to people like you must also collect a fee to cover such operational costs.

There probably will never be a phone book for cellular numbers, and even if they were compiled it is probable the majority of the numbers would be unpublished as is the case with many landline numbers today. The only way to get access to such phone numbers is to put up a small charge either to do a one time number lookup or to join a lookup service if you will be using the service long term.