I tried to post this last June (2004); apparently it has been sat in Draft status ever since… Ah well. Better late than never. And a neat trick.
One way to trace your old friends is to enter their name into Google. But unless they are web-savvy and talkative enough to have their own homepage, you won’t find much of them online.
Another, better way of getting in touch with out-of-sight friends is to put their name on your web site, and to let it be indexed by the Googlebot.
Now even those who don’t have their own web page sooner or later sit in front of Google and enter their own name. (Ego-browsing is one of the most common types of search.) And when they do enter their name, your page pops up in the result list.