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 phone book and locating their name. Things have grown more complex 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 widespread use of caller ID on most home phones, some numbers may appear without an identifying name and there are ways for callers to prevent their name from coming up. Reverse phone lookup directories have stepped up to these changing demands to provide a very valuable service to modern phone users.

There are two common uses for these services.

Searching for Names

If you are receiving calls from someone and only a number is revealed on your caller ID, or you need to identify cell phone callers, reverse phone lookup services can help you find out the name registered to the number in question. Just by typing in the number you will be able to identify whoever is responsible for the phone calls in question.

People looking for lookup directories include those who need to identify a number constantly phoning their spouse or children's cell phone, since there is no accessible directory for cell phone numbers. Others may use this when they need to identify a name registered to a landline that is unpublished. If you have a number but don't know who it belongs to, a reverse phone lookup service can help.

Locating Addresses

The other common function is to find an address for someone, whether you know the name of the person or not. Once you find the contact information connected with a certain number most services will deliver other sorts of data as well, such as the address of the home phone or an address listed to a cell phone number.

This may not be a typical need for most people, but it does have its uses in some situations. For instance, consider a parent needing to locate a teenager who has run away or is still out long after curfew. If they can find phone numbers from the teenager's belongings or cell phone a lookup directory could quickly tell them addresses and names of locations the teenager may be at that time.

More common situations may be searching for addresses to send out party invitations to your child's classmates. 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 directories can also deliver access to other sorts of data, such as income brackets or address histories, and one site even gives a map with an rough pinpoint of the most current location.

There is a small charge for any relevant reverse phone lookup website, but if your business or personal life requires certain data it is more than worth the payoff in the long run. The charge is necessary because this kind of information is not simple or free to research, collect, and protect, so dispensing it immediately to people such as you must also come with a fee to make up for these operational costs.

There likely will never be a phone book for cell phone numbers, and even if they were compiled it is probable a lot of the numbers would be unlisted just like many landline numbers right now. The best way to gain access to such numbers is to put up a small fee either to complete a single phone number search or to join a lookup service if you will be using the service on a regular basis.