by Leigh Goessl

Created on: November 14, 2009   Last Updated: February 05, 2012

Facebook is a great way to find and reconnect with friends you've lost touch with over the years. Currently the site has been steadily gaining in popularity to the point where in 2009 Facebook became the most popular social networking site on the web. The number of people joining everyday is steadily increasing which makes Facebook the ideal platform to find people you'd like to contact but don't know where they are.

Finding friends on Facebook is relatively straightforward. To do this, first you'll have to sign up for a Facebook account if you don't have one already. After you give the requested information, your account will then be created and you can immediately begin searching for your buddies.

Here are a few techniques you can try to find your friends on Facebook:

Do a General Search

Sometimes the easiest way to find someone is to simply plug their name into Facebook's search engine. Often the results returned are a large list since Facebook. However if your friend has an unusual name, you may find him or her pretty quickly. You'll likely find most profiles are set to private, but even if profiles are not listed publicly, you are still free to look for names and send messages if you desire or think you've found the person you're looking for.

If after doing a general Facebook search you receive tons of returns with your friend's name and you still can't zero in on the person you're looking for, one of the following methods may prove to be more successful.

Search by School

If your friend was a high school chum, they may be listed within the school's network. To connect the easiest way is to list your name on all the schools you were a student at and the network associated with your school will automatically be hyperlinked to your profile. Chances are if you add your name to all the schools you attended, friends may even find you first.

After listing yourself for your schools, you can see the list of people who also have listed the same schools to their profile. The default link Facebook offers is your graduating class, but you are not limited to searching your year, you can search other graduating classes as well.

Once you find your school's list of former students, scroll through and see if you find the people you're looking for. If you find someone you think is your friend, but are unsure because there is no photo or other identifying information listed, you may want to drop them a brief note before adding a friend request so you know for sure it's the

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