If you're having trouble finding a business or a person, the following tips may help. Just click on a sub-title below to go directly to a specific paragraph, or use the scroll bar on the right side of your browser screen.
Business Classifications
In this space on the search form, type in a keyword that describes the product or service you're looking for. For example, type in "shoe" if you're trying to find a shoe store. When you click "Find It!" the computer checks all the classifications with the word "shoe" in them and shows them to you as a pull-down display. Then simply select the one you want, type in any other criteria such as city, and click "Find It!" again.
Keywords
To get the best possible selection of classifications, type in the shortest root of the word. For example, if you keyed in "shoes", as in the paragraph above, you would not get classifications such as "shoe shining" or "shoe repair". Therefore the best keyword to type in would be "shoe". Also, putting in the root of the word makes sure you get both singular and plural forms of the full word. Try to avoid shortening the root so you will get a large number of matching words. For example, the keyword "auto" will produce "automotive", "automobile", "automatic", etc.
Business Name
Because names can be spelled many different ways, it is necessary to give a little thought to your request. For example, is it "McDonald" or "MacDonald"? Try not to key in the full and complete name of a company such as "Acme Electronic Importers & Resellers Corp Inc" because there are too many ways in which this name may be stored in the database. Try "Acme" alone, and narrow down the city or province where the company is located, if you can.
Address
For the same reason that names can be stored so many ways, so too can addresses. If you wish to find a bank on Granville Street in Vancouver, simply type in "Granville" in this area. Omit words like "Street", "Avenue" and "Boulevard".
City
The Business and People Finder list of cities is one of the most comprehensive available. Each city name has been carefully checked for spelling, correct province and area code. Type in the name of the city you wish to search. If you have spelled it wrong, you will get a message and a list of all cities beginning with your initial letter. In many cases we will automatically substitute the correctly spelled name for you. Choose the city you want and click "Find It!".
Suburbs
Because in recent years cities have expanded and swallowed up many nearby communities, we have solved the problem of finding the correct city name for you. Let's say you wish to find a company that you know is in the Toronto area, but you're not sure of the exact municipality. The Business and People Finder service automatically looks at all the communities in the Greater Toronto Area. The result list displays businesses in alphabetical order by name and shows you the community in which it is located. We have done the same for most major Canadian cities.
Postal Code
If you wish to find businesses in a particular postal code, simply key in the code and click "Find It!". You will be shown a list of businesses in that postal code.
Area Code
If you wish to find all businesses within a classification in a particular area code, type your classification root word in the classification field, and then type your chosen area code in the area code field. You need not select a province. Now click "Find It!" and select the appropriate final classification from the pull-down menu. Click "Find It!" again and you will see a list of businesses in alphabetical order in your chosen classification and area code.
Telephone Number
The Business and People Finder provides a reverse directory of businesses and people, so you can find out who called you and left a phone number. Key in the number (area code first) and click "Find It!". You need not select a province or provide any further information. In fact, you may prevent a match if you provide too much information! If it's a business number, we'll display the business or businesses at that number. If it's a residential number, we are unable to find any matches to individuals - only businesses.
Province
In most instances, you should select a province. This speeds up your search considerably. However, if you wish to search the whole country by your chosen criteria, just select "All of Canada" and click "Find It!" This search may take a little longer than usual as the search engine is checking all ten provinces and two territories for your chosen items.
Here's a useful tip:
The Business and People Finder lets you search multiple provinces. Let's say you wish to find businesses only in Alberta and Saskatchewan. Instead of searching Alberta first and then doing another search in Saskatchewan, simply select Alberta and then hold down the Control key (Command key for Macintosh users) and click on Saskatchewan (this works for most recent versions of popular browsers). Both provinces are now selected. For your convenience, we have also included a selection for Atlantic Provinces, which automatically searches the three Maritimes provinces and Newfoundland.
Advanced Search Techniques
The Business and People Finder search engine can do sophisticated searching for those who would like to tailor their requests for their own special needs. First, a little background.
Each field is indexed on the first word to enable speedy results. For classifications this means that the product or service is usually the first word in the description. Thus, "Automobiles" as the first word will quickly give you a list of classifications which further describe automobiles. In the case of business names, this means companies such as "Acme Electric" can be quickly found.
But suppose you wish to find all the Ford dealers in Edmonton. How would you do it? While the ability to search by brand names is currently under development, you can assume that most Ford dealerships have the word "Ford" in their names. But it's usually not the first word. So how to search for "Ford"? To force the search engine to look for your chosen keyword anywhere in the name field, not just the first word, key "% Ford". Note the space between the % sign and the word "Ford" - this stops the search engine from picking names that have "ford" in the middle, such as "affordable". You can use this search technique for most text fields.
Still can't find it?
Let us find it for you. Use this e-mail findit@yellow.ca to send us the details you have on the company you're trying to find. Our staff will search all of our sources and report our findings to you within 24 hours.
Contact Us
We hope this sales statement has been informative and clear. Please e-mail us regarding any questions or further information you may be interested in.
