It used to be that everyone had a standard phone in their home and searching for a number or address simply required opening the yellow pages and finding their name. Things have grown more difficult now that cell phones are widely used and many people do not even have landlines, and if they do their number may be unlisted.

Even with the invention of caller ID on most home phones, some numbers may show up without an identifying name and there are ways for callers to stop their details from showing up. Reverse phone lookup providers have stepped up to these changing demands to offer a very useful service to resourceful phone users.

There are two typical uses for lookup directories.

Finding Names

If you are receiving calls from someone and only a number comes up on your caller ID, or you want to identify cellular phone callers, reverse phone lookup services can help you find out the name registered to the number of concern. Just by entering the number you will have access to whoever is initiating the calls of concern.

People looking for this service include those wanting to identify a number often phoning their spouse or children's cell phone, since there is no phone book for cell phone numbers. Others may use this when they need to know a name listed to a home phone that may be unpublished. Whenever you have a number but don't know who it belongs to, a reverse phone lookup website can deliver the information.

Locating Addresses

The other typical use is to locate an address for someone, whether you know their name or not. Once you gain access to the information linked with a certain number most directories will deliver other sorts of information as well, such as the address of the landline or the address associated with a cell phone number.

This may not be a typical need for most people, but it does have its benefits in some situations. For instance, consider a parent in a rush to locate a teenager who has run off or is still out well past curfew. If they can come up with numbers from the teenager's bedroom or cell phone a reverse phone lookup could quickly reveal addresses and names of places the child may be located.

More common situations may be searching for addresses to send out party invitations to your child's friends. If you have the phone number you can get their address and easily deliver the invite without calling or tracking down other busy people.

These services can also give you a connection to other sorts of data, such as income brackets and previous addresses, and one site even gives a map with an estimated pinpoint to the business or home's location.

There will be a nominal price for any up to date reverse phone lookup website, but if your business or personal situation requires certain data it is money well spent in the end. The fee is unavoidable because this kind of information is not easy or free to research, collect, and store, so issuing it as needed to others like you must also include a fee to make up for such serviceable costs.

There more than likely will never be a phone book for cellular numbers, and even if there were it is probable a lot of the numbers would be unpublished just like many landline numbers right now. The best way to get access to such phone numbers is to put up a small charge either to complete a one time number lookup or to join a lookup directory if you will need to access the service on a regular basis.