Facebook continues, indefatigably, to hold tight to its coveted status of the biggest and the most popular social media network in the world. With its active monthly user base hitting well over 2.2 billion, Facebook towers over its closest rivals — the likes of YouTube with around 1.9 billion users; WhatsApp about 1.5 billion, and others. As the largest social media site, Facebook enjoys many perks and benefits, one of which is that it’s also the largest people search engine in the world. This gives you the ability to find people, groups, pages, posts, events, photos, etc.
In this how-to article, we take a look at ways through which you can search Facebook without having an account on or logging into the platform.
Searching Facebook without an Account
Not only can you search Facebook for people via their name, but also via their emails and cellphone numbers. Those search results, as well as the profile info you will see, might vary based on the individual privacy settings of users.
Though the search option works best when you’re logged in, there could be some instances when you would like to carry out a quick Facebook search and you are logged out. You might want to do a quick background check on a person you are trying to hire or check the online page of a company or your service provider. At those times, you may feel it is not worth it going through the hassle of logging in to your Facebook account to do the search. Let’s discuss 4 methods you can use to avoid that hassle and conduct your search on Facebook.
Google Search Query
Google is, doubtless, the undisputed numero uno search engine. And using specific advanced search queries, you can carry out a search on Google for certain types of files, URLs. You can even carry out searches for a particular site/page to get specific information.
Here are the steps to take to use this option:
Step 1: Launch your Web browser app and proceed to Google site.
Step 2: Enter this into your search box: site:facebook.com “First Last”
Please Note: Instead of “First Last”, you will input the first name and last name, respectively, of that user you’re searching for. You will see search results, automatically, if Google Instant is enabled on your browser. If it isn’t, you can click on the “Google Search” option.
Step 3: In the last step, you will click one of your first few search results (typically Facebook Profile pages). You might need to go through a handful of them to get the right person.
When you are viewing a profile page, you‘ll see every one of the info that the user has shared in public in their profile without the need to create or sign into a Facebook account.
Use of FB Directory
Though Google Search is a robust tool and is ideal for searching for people and pages, is there any site that would better understand their own database other than Facebook? Go to Facebook Directory.
It is possible you will be asked to input captcha for Facebook to confirm you’re really a human. After this, you’ll see a small sample of data, arranged in alphabetical order.
You can instruct FB to conduct a search for people, places, or pages. Simply go to the relevant tab and input your query. Then, Facebook will provide search results from which you can get information on whom or what you seek.
FB People Search
With Facebook People Search, not only can you view the profile of the person you searched for, but can also see other relevant information, such as date of birth, employer, school, city, workplace, in addition to any other info that the person shared in public.
This shows that the People Search tool is quite powerful, allowing you to refine your search queries. Just like Google, you’ll only see ten (10) results on a single page.
Looking at the name, you might think the option is only used to search for people via Facebook. Even on landing upon the people search homepage, it will initially request that you input the name of the person you intend searching for. But in reality, you are allowed to enter other queries also, including places, pages, etc.
Social Media Search Engines
The emergence of social media came along with the introduction of a new breed of search engines, which is called social search engines. The aims of such tools are, aggregating data that is publicly available from different social media networks — such as Facebook — and displaying this information in a neat manner for your perusal. We will focus on two of these search engines here — Pipl and Social Searcher.
Pipl is a people search engine which lets you enter the name and location of the person you are looking for. By doing this, you can narrow down potential profiles. You would be surprised that even searching for the rarest of names can bring multiple results.
On the other hand, Social Searcher helps you search not only for people but also conversations with the aid of hashtags as well as advanced search queries. Just like Pipl, the tool will equally include results obtained from other social media platforms. Social Searcher can be a valuable resource if you intend searching for information without the need to log into Facebook or even have an account on the network.
The software is a cool means to search for people, pages, brands, and companies. This can help you know what other people are saying about them, among other uses. You can equally make use Social Searcher to read breaking news as well as follow real-time events. It is a great resource to get valuable information on a wide variety of people and things.
Both Pipl and Social Searcher services have free versions and premium plans, which are ideal for business owners. Social Searcher has an app on Apple’s App Store.
