It may seem obvious, but searching for information about your favorite celebrity on an Internet search engine like Google or Yahoo is a great way to find out where and when a celebrity is scheduled to make an appearance near you.

A few years ago Yahoo was the #1 place to visit for online information, but in the last few years it’s turned into more of a brand and directory than an actual search engine. At the time of this writing, Google has indexed more than four billion Web pages, more than 800 million images, and more than 845 million newsgroup messages. More than 81.9 million users visit Google every month in 35 different languages. Why? Because they usually have the answers you see.

Try these search phrases for starters. As you become more familiar with the search engine and how it works, you can make subtle changes to these example phrases. It’s really easy! Go to http://www.google.com now and type in the following, replacing [celebrity name] with someone you want information on:

[celebrity name] book signing

[celebrity name] charity event

[celebrity name] contact information

[celebrity name] email address

[celebrity name] signed photo

For example, typing the words "Julianne Moore contact details" will give you many results to look through, but knowing how to use Google means knowing how to really use Google! Many users don’t realize that searching for that phrase will bring up pages with those words (Julianne and Moore and contact and details) displayed anywhere on its page.

That means you could get a page that is written by Julianne Smith about Roger Moore, where she says he can be contacted for a transcript of an interview the actor did with Details magazine.

In order to have Google truly narrow your search down to relevant results, you need to add quotation marks. When you put quotes around two words, however, like "Julianne Moore", Google will look for instances where those two words, names, or phrases will be shown rather than only the page with both. That is when you break out the plus sign (+).

If your Google search is for "Julianne Moore" + "contact details", Google will return only Web sites where those two phrases both occur. The difference is vast. In the original search, Google turns up over 12,000 positive matches. But when you add quotation marks and the plus sign, it returns under 700. You may still get bad results, however, even with those qualifiers. For example, if Julianne Moore, a student at XYZ Business School, is offering to tutor high school students and has put up a Web site with her contact details, that’s going to show up in the search above.

Savvy searchers will add a little something extra to narrow down the searches even more. If you add the word "actress" to the mix, the results come down to less than 200. If you throw in "signed photo” the results come down to just one--a Web page that lists a postal address of Julianne Moore’s agent. That’s a good start, but you can do even better.

"Contact Julianne Moore" is a decent option, but when you put that in Google, it returns a mere 57 results. Looking down the list, you can see that most of the results give the same information: the agent’s address. Some results don’t have any address at all, but instead have those words at the bottom of the page so they’ll show up on Google searches…sneaky! Others are just portal Web sites, pointing to other Web sites with the actual information.

What we really want is an actual address, so we need to add something to the search string that you might find only on an actual address, such as "USA". Now when we conduct our new search, "contact Julianne Moore" + “USA”, we get 15 results, most of which list an actual address. In this particular case, all of them are the agent’s address, which is fine. At least we know the information is probably factual and current.

But will a letter to that address result in a signed photo? And if does, will it be real or just a printed signature? Another Google search answers that question pretty well: "Julianne Moore" + "signed photo" brings up a few Web pages where signed photos are sold, but it also brings up a Web site where an autograph collector has listed his successes in sending away for signed photos--and one of those was from Julianne Moore. When you click the picture, you can see that it’s signed "Dear Daniel," which would indicate that Ms. Moore signs her own photos. Bingo!

Something else worth noting is that the Web site in question lists the contact address that was used as c/o Laws of Attraction, a movie that Moore was making in 2003. This gives us an inside scoop into the fact that if we send correspondence to the set of whatever movie she’s currently filming, she might just send something back signed. This is a situation that is much less likely to result in a pre-printed signature.

We’ve just spent three minutes narrowing down the right address, proving that she’ll likely give us a real autograph, and that she’s open to fan contact in this way, not to mention working out the best way to get in touch with the address. And we did it all with a few smart Google searches. Not bad! Once you learn how to narrow down the search results and get through the bad ones, the possibilities for finding the information you need are virtually endless.

Of course, there are many Web sites devoted to celebrity addresses, but the big question for you is whether or not the listings are accurate. A Web site of celebrity addresses set up by an autograph collector--but never updated--won’t do you any good. Celebrities change agents and managers often, so addresses must be constantly researched and updated.

Contact Any Celebrity at http://www.ContactAnyCelebrity.com maintains an online database with the best mailing address, agent, manager, publicist, production company and charitable cause for over 54,000 celebrities and updates this information every day. They’ll also research any special requests you have and refund your postage if any letters you send are returned to you by the Postal Service.

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