There are days you may think the Internet is fun, boring, worthless, or a goldmine of useful information. What you may not know is that you can get some information that can really change your mind about hiring or trusting someone. Though not all info you find online is valid, you can really learn a lot about someone through an online search by using their name and any other information that you may have about them.

Probably the easiest search is the one you can do through Google, MSN, Yahoo, and any other search engine that you may use every day. Use them all to see what comes up. Put someone's name in quotes to be sure you are narrowing down what comes up for you. That gives you more relevant information. Don't forget to use the image, news, and the blog searches as well. They may very well pop up on at least one of them.

After running that type of search, you may have a few bits of information, but you may not have enough. You can also try to search through many of the various social and professional networking sites that you can find online. Try MySpace, FaceBook, Hi5, LinkedIn, and Orkut, just to start. If someone has a profile on any of them, you can probably find out a lot more than you could through the search engines.

You can also try to use a reverse phone search, if you have a phone number, to learn more about where they live and even who they may live with. This is helpful if you are wondering if someone is really single, or if they are not being honest about where they are living at the current time. This can also lead you to more clues that you can follow up with in other areas online.

Don't forget to try a criminal background search to see what you can find out. This can tell you a lot about someone that you don't know very well, but that gives you a very bad feeling when you meet them. You can even try to do medical background checks if you are worried about a health condition, and you have to know about members of your family that you don't know and can not contact for whatever reason.