Yellowpages and Whitepages are great help
for finding information about companies, people, products
etc. While yellowpages provide information on companies
and products, whitepages provide information on people
(like a telephone directory) So, if you are looking
for contact details of a company in Bahrain, probably
the search will start from a business directory of
Bahrain.
Before the advent of Internet, printed
yellowpages were about the only source of such information.
These printed directories are not only expensive but
tedious to use as search options are usually limited
to category or company.
With the advent of Internet came hundreds
of yellowpages with not only superior search facilities
generally associated with computerised databases but
also at almost no cost. Even after dotcom bust there
exists a large number of country specific and special
purpose yellowpages where access is still free.
Another feature of Internet directories
is the ability to search for people (also called whitepages)
as in telephone directories. This is a wonderful feature
not available before Internet era where one can search
for telephone directories of the world in the Net.
For example, MTNL telephone directories are now available
in the Net.
Tips on Better
usage of Yellowpages and Whitepages
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Prefer country-specific directories
rather than general purpose ones.
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Read the help/guide file before
search, it saves time
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Check the language - is it English
? If not, is an English version available ?
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Some directories allow reverse search
(i.e. find telephone number when you know name,
as well as find name when you know telephone number).
It is a very helpful feature - specially for people
search
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Many directories allow partial string
matching - for example a search by 'joh*' will
retrieve John, Johny, Johnson etc.) While this
is great help when you do not know full name -
partial string match also retrieves lot of unwanted
junk. Use this feature carefully.
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Narrowing down your search always
helps. For example if you know the State or province
or Category - input them in search query (provided
the directory allows multiple keyword search facility).
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Check your spelling. Upper case,
lower case mix usually does not matter
Yellowpages
List of select yellowpages. Please use
any search engine to cover other countries.
Australia
Telstra Australia Yellow Pages http://www.yellowpages.com.au/
Bahrain
Bahrain Internet Pages http://bahrain.middle-east-pages.com/
South Africa
Official South African yellow Pages http://www.yellowpages.co.za
Business Directory and yellow Pages for South Africa
http://www.easyinfo.co.za
China
China Big - Comprehensive Business Listing
for Greater China - in Chinese and English http://www.chinabig.com/en/srch/
China Pages http://www.chinapages.com/
UAE
Abu Dhabi Business Directory http://www.adcci.gov.ae/services/directory/index.html
Whitepages
List of few notable whitepages
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Populas Calls itself the "intelligent
people locator". Can locate people by more than
just their name, but doesn't seem to have a large
number of names yet.
http://www.populus.net
Special Purpose Directories
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Inmarsat Ships Directory - Telephone
numbers of ships in Inmarsat Global networks.
If you are ashore and you want to contact a ship
at sea, use this directory for the ship's tel,
fax, telex or email address.
http://www.inmarsat.org/ships/
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KOMPASS Trade Directories 1.6 million
companies, 23 million key product and service
references, 3.2 million executive names 744 000
trade and brand names....
http://www.kompass.com/ -
