We have discussed many tips and tricks in this series on how to extract the best out of a search engine. Today, we discuss a few traps or common mistakes, blunders and gaffes that happen very often.

Perhaps the biggest mistake that we often commit unwittingly is to search in wrong places. This week, let us see the alternatives if we are to find out brief information or contact details of a business, company or individual.

If you are looking for a business/company in North America

Instead of searching in AltaVista or Yahoo, try the following:

• At Hand Network Yellow Pages http://www.athand.com This yellowpages site is jointly operated by several regional telecom companies, and provides access to both national and local business listings.
• BigYellow Directory http://www.bigyellow.com Big Yellow's covers over 16 million business listings. 
• BigFoot http://www.bigfoot.com Using name or location, search Bigfoot's extensive e-mail and white page listings. Web pages and yellow pages can also be searched. 
• SuperPages.com http://yp.gte.net Over 11 million US businesses are listed in GTE's "Interactive Yellow Pages".
• InfoSpace Yellow Pages , White Pages http://infospace.com/ Find businesses in the U.S. and Canada with InfoSpaceYellow Pages.
• Switchboard http://www.switchboard.com Using Switchboard, you can find yellow page business listings by category and/or name.

Indian Yellow pages

For similar searching in India - a few options are:

Metro Telephone Directories

• MTNL Delhi - Directory Services http://delhi.mtnl.net.in/directory/individual.htm
• MTNL Mumbai - Directory Services http://mumbai.mtnl.net.in/directory/index.html
• Chennai - Telephone Directory http://www.chennaitelephones.gov.in/newdq/index.html 
• Kolkata Telephone Directory http://www.calcuttatelephon 

Telephone Directory of States

• Andhra Pradesh http://www.aptelecom.gov.in/enquiry/enquiryhome.htm
• Arunachal Pradesh http://www.bsnl.co.in/ne2/directory/ap/index.php 
• Assam http://www.assamtelecom.com/TelephoneDirectory.htm
• Bihar http://www.bihartelecom.com/html/directory_enquiry.html
• Chhattisgarh http://www.chhattisgarh.dotindia.com/CGTelecomDir.html
• Gujarat http://210.212.128.250/ 
• Goa http://www.goatelecom.net/dirsearch3.asp 
• Jammu and Kashmir http://www.dotindia.com/jnk/directory/index.php
• Jharkhand http://www.jharkhandtelecom.nic.in/scripts/dirinq.php 
• Kerala http://www.keralatelecom.com/newdqasp/newdq1.html
• Karnataka http://www.karnataka.dotindia.com/bgtd_enq/enquiryhome.htm
• Haryana http://www.haryana.bsnl.co.in/ndq.htm
• Himachal Pradesh http://www.dotindia.com/hp/enquiry.html
• Madhya Pradesh http://www.mp-telecom.net/directory/ssasearch.asp
• Maharashtra http://www.maharashtracircle.net.in/mdir/start.htm
• Manipur http://www.bsnl.co.in/ne2/directory/manipur/index.php
• Meghalaya http://northeast.dotindia.com/directory/dirsearch.asp
• Mizoram http://www.mizoramtelecom.com/telephoneenquiry.htm
• Nagaland http://www.bsnl.co.in/ne2/directory/nagaland/index.php
• Tripura http://www.bsnltripura.nic.in/adsearch.htm
• Orissa http://www.orissatelecom.com/directory.htm
• Punjab http://punjab.dotindia.com/directory1.htm
• Rajasthan http://rajasthan.dotindia.com/frameindex.html
• Tamilnadu http://tamilnadu.dotindia.com/Enquiry/direnq_revdistrict.asp
• Uttar Pradesh East http://lucknow.dotindia.com/ndq/ndq.asp
• Uttar Pradesh West http://www.upwtelecom.com
• Uttaranchal http://www.uttaranchal-telecom.com
• West Bengal http://210.212.0.3/wbteldirectory/home.asp
• Sikkim http://210.212.0.3/wbteldirectory/home.asp

Other Yellow Pages

• Tata Press Yellow pages http://www.tpyponline.com/ 
• Getit Yellow Pages http://www.getitindia.com 
• India Yellow pages http://www.indiayellowpages.com/ 
• India's Yellowpages http://www.indiayellowpagesonline.com/

Wow ! That's a lot of information. And most of it is sure to remain outside general purpose search engines for a long long time. So, you know the options next time there is need for business directory search.