How to find someone by Social Media Username, like an expert.

Trying to find someone by social media username? We got your back. I’m not going bore you with overcomplicated details. You’re trying to find someone, probably in a rush, and I know you are not interested in social media history. So let’s get to the point.

You will learn the following:

  1. How to use free Reverse Lookups to find user accounts.
  2. How to find dating profiles by username (even the hidden ones!)
  3. What Google Dorking is..and how the experts use them.
  4. How to Dork, even if you are a newbie.
  5. Top tips from experts on tracking people online.
  6. Understand what ‘public-by-default’ means and how it can help you.

What’s the big challenge you’re going to face? Mass data. There are many social sites when searching for someone on Snapchat, Instagram, Kik, Facebook, POF, or any other platform. For every social network you know of, there are 20 more you don’t know of.

If you’ve already tried to look up someone’s profile, I bet it’s ended up with a load of ‘possible’ results. And that’s only on one social media site. You’ll have another 20 or so to check. I know, it’s frustrating.

Not to worry. There are four main ways to find someone by username quickly and avoid all that mess.

How to find someone by social media username

1. Look up usernames with UserSearch

UserSearch is a username search tool designed to find information about a person using a username or an email address. The UserSearch platform searches for information on social network sites, dating sites, and many more.

UserSearch is one of the biggest “reverse username lookup search engines.” It helps you find information about anyone, especially the strangers you meet online.

A reverse lookup search tool, built by UserSearch.org.  Finds users across hundreds of social networks by username or email address.
A reverse lookup search tool built by UserSearch.org. Finds users across hundreds of social networks by username or email address.

UserSearch works to achieve three things;

  • Find out the real identity of a person using a username.
  • Establish whether a user is registered to any website.
  • And finally, locate a public profile used by a username and their activity online based on the data available.

How to use UserSearch

Here are steps 1-5 on how to do a “search username” on UserSearch:

Reverse Lookup tools like UserSearch can scan hundreds of social networks and dating sites in seconds, quickly proving an easy-to-understand report on what profiles exist from your query..and more importantly, a quick button to view that profile.
Reverse Lookup tools like UserSearch can scan hundreds of social networks and dating sites in seconds, quickly providing an easy-to-understand report on what profiles exist from your query..and, more importantly, a quick button to view that profile.
  1. Go to UserSearch official website page.
  2. Enter the username you wish to search on into the search bar.
  3. Select the category you want to search, e.g., Social network sites, as shown below.
  4. After you choose a category, click on the “search icon” in the search bar.
  5. UserSearch will display a list of social media profiles that use the username you entered. Browse to check the social profiles to get more information about the person you are searching for.

Reasons why you should use UserSearch

  • UserSearch does searches on a lot of social networks.
  • UserSearch does searches on many dating sites.
  • Many forums are searched.
  • You can download search results into a spreadsheet.
  • Also, you can check email addresses.
  • You can verify whether your email address has been hacked.

2. Search Google Dorking (DorkSearch.com)

Google Dorking is a useful tool that can help you find information on a user by doing a “search username.”

Unlike Google, which limits your search, Google Dorking allows you to search by a specific username. It will search across the Google index for any historically crawled user profiles that match your query.

How to use Google Dorking?

Use steps 1-4 on how to use GoogleDorks in searching for information:

A newbie-friendly tool to help you Google Dork all the information you need.  Dorking is so powerful, Google doesn't really like you knowing how to do it...but it's totally legal and they cannot stop you.
A newbie-friendly tool to help you Google Dork all the information you need. Dorking is so powerful; Google doesn’t really like you know how to do it…but it’s legal, and they cannot stop you.
  1. Go to DorkSearch.com
  2. Enter the search term into the search bar and click the search button. You can search usernames, emails, URLs, specific sites, etc.
  3. You will be redirected to Google, where search results of the search term used will be displayed.
  4. Browse to check which information is relevant to your search.

Why you should use Google Dorking

Dorking is great; why? Because we are not searching actual social networks at this point. We are searching Google’s databases. We are asking: “have you ever seen this profile?”. If it has, you can see exactly what date and time Google saw it. This is great because that profile you’re looking for may now be deleted or profile. However, Google still knows it ‘existed,’ meaning you can view a ‘cached’ version.

Advanced Google Skills

Google dorks use advanced search operators to narrow the search of anything you want.

For example, if you want to find information about a specific social media website, the operator “site” is used.

Say you want to find a friend with whom you went to university, and they are a very active follower of that Twitter account. You can easily find them using the following steps:

Google Dork results.  You'll see the results are showing specific results based on a username entered into the Dork.  The great part about Dorking is it stops all the irrelevant 'stuff' showing up in Google, allowing you to focus on what's important.
Google Dork results. You’ll see the results are specifically based on a username entered into the Dork. The great part about Dorking is it stops all the irrelevant ‘stuff’ showing up in Google, allowing you to focus on what’s important.
  1. Assume you both go to Cambridge University; you will search the term “Cambridge site: twitter.com” on google.
  2. The search results will show Twitter accounts related to Cambridge University.
  3. Browsing through the results on Twitter accounts will show specific feeds, videos, and tweets that can give you valuable intelligence. This intel can feed into your following searches.

3. Track down the person across the web

Tracking someone online is the third way you can locate anyone. You have to search by social media username on any search engine on the web (preferably Google).

Most social platforms are public. For instance, take Instagram, LinkedIn, and GitHub as an example. They would not exist if all their users chose to be private; their business model would not work. So, with these platforms’ policies being ‘public by default, a few intelligent Google queries can take you a long way.

Google.  Finding someone the old-fashioned way.
Google. Finding someone the old-fashioned way.

Google the username

To track down a person across the web, use the following steps:

  1. Open Google as your web browser.
  2. You would want to search by social media username, so type in the username of the person you wish to find into the search bar and press enter.
  3. Once Google has pulled up results of the accounts with the username you just keyed in, browse through to check if you see anything that matches what you are looking for.
  4. If you get irrelevant results from the search, consider using quotation marks; for instance, type “username” on the search bar. By doing this, Google will limit the search results to matches that are exact and irrelevant will be filtered out.
  5. Lastly, in the event where you don’t get anything useful information from the search result, you can try to use Bing to get a second opinion from another search engine.

Check social media

What if the search engines fail to give something valuable from the search results? It is not always guaranteed that you will get the results you are hoping to find by searching by social media username on Google.

For this reason, you can decide to “search username” across social media networks.

To find the username of a person in the social media networks, use these steps;

  1. Open any social media platform such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat, Pinterest, etc.
  2. Go to any social media platform’s search bar or search icon, enter the username you want to find, and press the search button.
  3. You will get different search results. Browse through to see if any account or profile matches your desire.
  4. If you find the username of a profile that matches your interest, you can reach out by sending them a friend request or a direct message depending on what you want to do.

That’s how you can search by social media username to find the username of the person you are looking to get in touch with using social media networks.

Try variations

What if reverse username lookup doesn’t work at all? Did you get the username wrong? or Did the account holders change their usernames to something different?

It comes down to this, if you did not find any helpful information using the methods discussed above, you could decide to put your “psychic abilities” into practice. Take several guesses of the potential usernames a person might choose to use, then do a search username on them.

Who knows, you might be lucky and guess the correct username, or maybe you are good at using your psychic powers. Whatever the case, you may not always get it right, but it is better to give it a shot than not do anything. After all, what do you have to lose?

Bonus tips when tracking down a person across the web

  • Use the full name if you don’t have the username of the person you wish to find on social media networks.
  • To get precise search results, always remember to include quotation marks on the username or the name of the person you wish to find. For example, “John Doe.”
  • If you know more information about a person, include it in your search. This will help to narrow down the research results to more relevant information. For example, (“John David” ex-singer of Band Lee).
  • If the person you want to search username for is involved with a particular company or organization, find the username of the person by including the site where they study or work. For example, (site:  Cambridge University “John Doe”). If the person of interest is listed as a contact or a staff in that organization, you will be able to find their details in the search results.

These tips are great, and they work well. Give them a shot!

As a matter of fact, doing a reverse username lookup in Google works perfectly well, such that people can find the results of the information they are looking for. If not, Google will give you suggestions that would be potential leads to whatever information you wish to find about a person.

4. Ask for information directly

Asking for information directly from the people you wish to find their social media profiles is the easiest thing you can do. If you know a person well, or maybe you just met them online, it would save you some time if they give you their social media username instead of doing a reverse username lookup on them.

No one fancies the idea of being cyberstalked because that’s creepy. I recommend you be open to someone about what you want to do rather than going behind their back to look for their information.

So, just start a conversation with the individual you want to know their username, and then ask for it later. Also, if you meet someone through a dating site, this would be a good opportunity for you to know them better. Ask for a name, a phone number, or a username for their social media networks, then do a background check on them to see if you can trust them.

To ask for information directly from a person, in most cases, works well for many. However, it may not be ideal in some cases. Especially if you think someone is not being completely honest with you. In this case, it is wise to use the methods discussed in this guide. For example, you can use the UserSearch tool or Google Dorking to get the information you are looking for.

Searching like the experts...

Searching by social media username is not always straightforward. It may not even be easy, particularly when that person is trying to hide. Also, what you are looking for, maybe a common username, makes it harder to narrow down your “search username.” However, just keep at it, persevere, and have a little more patience, and you might end up finding what you are looking for in the end.

It’s all about digging deep, thinking outside the box, and taking onboard the tools we’ve mentioned here. It’s a tried and tested process, trust us.

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