The web is a big place, and it can be hard to find what you’re looking for. But with the right tools and techniques, you can find just about anything on the internet. Here are a few tips for finding things in particular on the web.

1. Use an asterisk as a wildcard.

This is the most common way to find something on the web. The asterisk can be used as a wildcard character that matches one or more characters in a string of text. For example, if you want to find all instances of “The Matrix” on Wikipedia, enter: “*Matrix*” into the search box at the top right of any page.

The asterisk can also be used as a wildcard character to search for any word. For example, if you want to find all instances of the word “anywhere” on Wikipedia, enter: “anywhere*” into the search box at the top right of any page.

2. Go beyond Google to other useful search engines.

Google is the most popular search engine on the web, but it's far from the only one. Here are a few alternatives you should try out.

1. DuckDuckGo

This search engine is fast and easy to use, but it doesn't track your searches or filter results based on your personal history. It also has an app for iOS and Android, which lets you search from your phone.

2. Yahoo! Search

Yahoo! Search is another great option if you're looking for something other than Google's offerings. It's still a solid option for searching the web, with thousands of sites indexed within its database. It also includes news articles, images and videos — just like Google does. And its mobile app is available on both Android and iOS platforms as well.

3. Bing

Bing might not be as well-known as Google or Yahoo!, but it offers some unique features that could make it worth checking out — especially if you've been using Google exclusively up until now (or vice versa). For example, one of Bing's best features is that it offers image searches with text recognition capabilities that allow users to look up items by pointing their cameras at objects in real time instead of typing them into forms.

3. Use the right search operator to dig deep.

You can use search operators to dig deeper on any given topic and find almost anything you need online. Here are some of our favorites:

• site: — Search only within a specific website. For example, type site:nytimes.com in Google and choose from the list of results. This is often the quickest way to find something on a particular site.
• inurl: — Find pages with certain words in their URL (such as "jobs" or "resume"). Use this operator with other search operators such as filetype: to restrict your results even further (such as filetype:pdf).
• intitle: — Look for pages that include a specific word in their title (such as "marketing manager"). Again, use this operator with other search operators such as filetype: to restrict your results even further (such as intitle:"marketing manager" filetype:doc).
• exact phrase — Find pages with an exact phrase in them (for example, "

4. Understand how search engines work.

Search engines like Google use algorithms to figure out what's important when you type in a query. Those algorithms learn from every search they make, so they can get better at finding what people are looking for over time. That means that serendipitous discoveries will always be part of the equation — but so will being specific about what you want.

5. Go beyond text to find what you're looking for.

If you're searching for a product, it's helpful to look at images of that product. If you're trying to find a restaurant, it helps if you can see photos of the interior and menu.

Images are often more helpful than text because they include more information about a subject. For example, if you're looking for a specific type of car, an image will show you its model year, color and other details that might not be included in a description.

Searching for text-based content is like reading the back cover of a book; searching for images is like flipping through pages inside the book itself.

Conclusion

Whether you're looking for a specific item, or just browsing for new ideas, crawling the web can be an extremely valuable activity for a designer. In this article we explored some specific methods and strategies for finding just about anything you might need online. Hopefully, these tips will help you to find what you need more quickly and easily!