The traditional phone book you get each year from your landline provider is a great source for most local numbers that you need. You may get both white and yellow pages, but some are contained within the same book. You can find someone by name, and then dial the number provided. You can also look in the yellow pages for a business, and the you find their number. However, what do you do when you have a number but no name? You turn on your computer.

You can find out a little about the number before you even get to the Internet, though you may need your computer for assistance. You can see where a number is calling from if you look at the area code and prefix. In the following number, the 222 is the area code and the 333 is the prefix: 222-333-4444. The area code is a state or a small section of a state, and then the prefix will give you the name of the city. You can use your computer to search for the area code first, and then for the prefix within that particular code.

That can give you some information about a number, but it might not be all that you need to decide who called, or even if you want to find out. You should remember that you can search for anything online, and that goes for phone numbers. Use the search engines to see if a hit comes up with the entire number included. You can also search that number out through professional networks, as people are encouraged to post their numbers there for business contacts and other communications.

You can take the online version of your white pages and turn it into a reverse number lookup. When you visit the white pages online, you are going to see an option for reverse search. You enter the number to see what comes up. You will get a match if the number is a listed landline, and if that person has not opted out of being included with the online listings. You can use the yellow pages in the same way for numbers that may be coming from a business.