192.com Blog

Today we unveil one of the really clever things you can do on 192.com.

If you’re moving house, whether you’re buying or renting, and want to know about your neighbours before you move in, check up your potential new street on 192.com.

Search by postcode or street name only on our search form and we’ll give you the full names, length of residency, age guides and property prices of just about every person on that street. If you don’t have 192.com search credits, you’ll need to purchase some at this point but from as little as tenner, you can search up to five different locations!

This sort of information gives you an idea of whether your neighbours have lived there for years or whether new people are moving in and out every year or so. It’ll also tell you how old your neighbours are and how much they paid for their property.

Let’s get started:

1. Go to 192.com
2. Enter a full postcode or street address in the “Where” field
3. Sign In / Buy Credits to access information on everyone that lives in that street

This is typically the sort of information you’re going to get on every household: Sample 192.com record >>

Similarly, if you’re looking for your neighbour’s details for any reason (such as needing to contact them about improvements to your property) then 192.com will give you all their information. If they are a Director of a Company, we’ll also list their business address and all their business interests.

We’ve also heard from users that have used a street search to get hold of someone that they are desperate to contact. So for example, if the person you’re searching for doesn’t have a directory enquiry listing, you can phone their neighbour and ask them to pass on a message.

Of course, if you just want to see all the property sale prices from the year 2000 onwards for any street, you can also do a simple
192.com property price search >>

Today we’ve officially launched our new Company Credit Reports facility, the same day we’ve been named ‘Website of the Day’ by Pocket Lint. And if Pocket Lint’s suggestion that, if you haven’t tried 192.com for a while now is the time to do it, doesn’t get you on the site perhaps the addition of this tool to help you safeguard against bad debt will.

What we set out to do with the new 192.com was to make it easy to access new data and so take directories to a powerful new level. The addition of Company Credit Reports is just another example of this. Not even a week after the government’s Insolvency Service announced a 39% increase in company liquidations, this is a useful tool that helps you understand the financial position of key customers and suppliers. It’s a bleak fact that insolvencies have increased at such a dramatic rate but at least unlike before, small businesses and even consumers now have instant, online access to information that previously would have been the domain of big business.

Company credit reports are now available for over 1 million of the records in 192.com’s Business Directory or can be searched directly from our Company Credit Reports portal.

One of the best features is the ‘monitor this company’ facility which allows you to setup free email alerts that notify you if the status of the company changes (such as the posting of new accounts, change of directors, or change of risk status / record of CCJs).

Try it out and let us know how you find it: http://www.192.com/creditreports/

I’m a very visual person so one of the features of the site I find most helpful is the maps on the results page. This means that instead of just scrolling down a list of results, you can see the people or businesses that you’ve searched for in relation to each other on a map. This was one of the features of the new site that mapping expert Mapperz liked most.

So for example, if you’ve searched for a business, you can find the one closest to your home or a train station. Alternatively, if you’ve searched for a person you can see results in relation to each other. If you’re a signed in user with premium search credits this feature is particularly useful if you’ve searched UK wide (i.e. without specifying a location). Because if you know a person lives in the south east of England, for example, you’ll be able to identify those listings on a map straight away.

If you click on any of the numbered bubbles on the maps, 192.com will give you a snap shot of the contact details for that person or business with a link to the full details page.

Don’t forget, you can resize the map at any time by clicking and dragging the slider between the map and the list of search results.

See your results in relation to each other on a map with the new 192.com:

To celebrate Andy Murray making it to the Wimbledon semi finals, we’ve added a secret search term to 192.com so you can see the new roof under construction.

We’ve just updated the image so you won’t find this on any other mapping site!

Go to www.192.com/places and search for ‘wimbledon tennis‘

For those who knew the old site and those who have just found us for the first time, hello and a warm welcome to the new 192.com from me and the rest of the Customer Services team.

I hope with the improvements we have made to the search engine and the new tools for refining your results that you are all finding what you’re looking for.

No need to register again as all your account details are the same, no change to your login details and all your credits are still valid too.

There are a couple of features from the old site that haven’t made it over to the new 192.com just yet, the route planner and personal address book will be making a welcome return sometime in the near future.

So that you can get the most out of the new 192.com we have put together some guides that will help you find your way around the new site, these can be found by going to
http://www.192.com/content/help/help-home/#tools

My favourite new feature on the new site is the refine your search capabilities. If you do a search you will see a bar down the left hand side which is called Refine Your Search. If you click on this bar or the arrow at the top, it will open up a window which allows you to do all sorts of things to narrow down your search to the person or business you are looking for.

For people, the window will show you all the different forenames and surnames that match your search and you can click on them to narrow down your search to the person you want. We also show you age ranges where we have them for people so if you know how old the person is you are looking for you can narrow down your search quickly and easily. We also show you all the occupations for any directors that match your search.

For business searches we allow you to narrow down your search by classification so if you know what the company does you can quickly and easily get to it.

For both people and businesses we will also show you all the locations that the person or business you have searched for are based, which along with having maps on the results page makes it very easy to find the person or business you want.

One last trick, if you only want to show people with telephone numbers, if you set the source to telephone directory in the window, it will only show people with telephone numbers.

For more information, read our guide to refining your search: http://www.192.com/content/help/refinesearch/

I hope you like this new feature,

Dominic

 The new 192.com Refine Search panel:

The new 192.com is now live, after 18 months of hard work, you are now seeing the new and improved 192.com.

We have conducted lots of research and testing to make sure the new site is a vast improvement on the old one. Please let me know what you like and don’t like about the new site as we will be continuing to improve it.

The key element of the new site is to make it much easier to find the information you are looking for, we have completely rewritten our search engine from the ground up making the search much more likely to find the information you are looking for. We have introduced a new refine your search capability which allows you to narrow down your search quickly and easily to find the person or business you are looking for.

We have made the site much more visual from including maps on the result pages so you can see where each of your results are located, to visually displaying things like neighbours, property prices and shops nearby on the details page.

We have now added Company Credit Reports, so in this current economic climate you can check on the financial stability of companies that you are doing business with.

I would like to thank everyone who took part in our research from those I met personally to everyone who has filled in a survey or tried the new site when it was in Beta, all of your feedback has been very important in building the new site.

So go and have an explore of the new site and give us your feedback,

Thank you,

Dominic

Discover the new 192.com >>

This week sees the launch of our new international section – International Phonebooks

Here you will find a collection of the best people and business phone directories from around the world. The site gives you information on each directory as well as a ranking for each site based on its popularity in its country.

We have also included links to Google Translate so you can translate the site into a language of your choice.

This is the most comprehensive collection of international phonebooks you will find anywhere covering 204 countries and over 400 sites.

We have put a lot of time and effort compiling this information, but if we have missed any sites that you like please let us know.

This is also a fantastic way to save money on international 118 calls! 

Check it out now at http://world.192.com

Today we started the final phase of testing of the new site. 10% of users coming to 192.com will now only see the new site.

Our initial feedback is the new site is working well and our users appear to much prefer it.

Please let us know what you think and let us know what you like or don’t like about it.

Dominic

After a year of research and development, we are now finally ready to show you our new and improved 192.com. The new site can be seen at www2.192.com and includes lots of new features that you have asked for as well as a brand new powerful interface.

This is a massive step change to the site and I hope you all like it. We will be starting to send users to the new site over the next two weeks. Please have a look and let us know what you think.

Dominic