This article was first published in 2007. While the site it originally discussed is still around, it now only offers basic information for free. We've since updated our coverage below.

If you're looking for information about someone online, many sites offer to help -- and one that can kick off your search is PeekYou. Visit the site and you'll see a prompt to enter someone's name and location. After a few seconds, you'll see some information pop up about said person of interest.

When I searched for myself, the website had my age, location, and possible relatives correct. It also picked up other people with names close to mine and offered similar info. Scrolling down, you'll find links to my actual Twitter, Instagram, and LinkedIn profiles. This also included MySpace, Flickr, and Wikipedia pages for people with similar names -- I don't have profiles on any of those sites.

Like many people search websites, PeekYou offers a bit of info for free but sends you to other sites that require a membership fee for more. Thus, we suggest taking a look around for anything you can find, but avoid paying Spokeo or other expensive services. Clicking any of the View Full Report or View All Details links will lead to these.

PeekYou also offers a username search option. It claims that you can "locate a person by their online alias." When I searched for my own email address and Twitter username, it didn't find anything. However, it did locate several popular YouTubers, so it may do better for more popular folks.

Finally, you can try searching by phone number. Depending on the person, you could find a lot of info or not much. Looking up a friend's phone number led to a profile without much info, while looking up my own somehow included actor Vanessa Hudgens in the results.

Your results may vary, but overall PeekYou is a viable option when looking for information about someone. If it doesn't help you, try finding the person's email address instead.

Have you ever embarked on a quest to find info about someone online? Which site worked best for you? Let us know in the comments!

Image Credit: ASDF_MEDIA via Shutterstock