Sunday, February 27, 2011

Google Discontinues its Phonebook

Google has dropped the phonebook: and rphonebook: operators used for finding U.S.  phone numbers.  The phonebook: operator was for both business and residential phone numbers while the rphonebook: operator was for residential phonebook and focused on home phones.  

In addition, phonebook results no longer appear among regular Google search results.

The Google phonebook operator was a great way to locate long-lost friends and family and was my favorite people finder search engine.  It was also convenient way to find long-distance phone numbers.  I'm going to miss it.

Also gone is GOOG-411,  Google's voice-powered directory assistance service, which was free of charge and connected to businesses across the U.S. and Canada.  I had used goog-411 from my cell phone while out and about.
 
Meanwhile, there are other free U.S. phonebooks that can be used:

And there are other ways to find a long-lost mother, father, brother, sister, grandmother, grandfather or other missing family member:

The Kim Cattrall episode of Who Do You Think You Are? shown in the U.S. may encourage others to try to locate missing family members.  The internet and technology certainly makes the search easier, but, as this WDYTYA? episode shows, collecting information by talking to family and even their neighbors provides a great starting point.

2 comments:

Susan Petersen said...

I wondered why phone book results had disappeared from Google searches in recent weeks. Thanks for sharing this information.

Courtney Kline said...

Thanks for the tips! I'm currently in the process of looking for several people. I'm blogging about it at http://findingkline.wordpress.com .