One obvious and very useful tool is the search engine. A good first step in a data hunt is to head over to your favorite search engine, be it Google, Yahoo, or one of the myriad others, and type a few search words or phrases related to what you are looking for into the search box. If you don't find your answer on the first attempt, keep trying - refine your search a bit, try substituting different words or phrases, enclose the phrases in quotes. Often the problem is not so much failing to get the right answer as it is failing to screen out irrelevant results. For that the plus "+" and minus "-" symbols in front of some words or phrases can work wonders. For example, if you are looking for sites on insects you could type:

+bug -pester -"software bug"

which should bring up sites on insects while excluding some unrelated sites which happen to have the word bug (adding a "+insect" to the search should improve your odds even more). Of course, if multiple attempts on your favorite search engine fail to yield the desired results, there's nothing wrong with trying a different search engine or two - Some might work better than others for a particular search. (Note: For a more detailed description of some useful search engine techniques, please see my article Advanced Search Phrases)

A popular alternative to using a search engine is to use a directory. With a directory, instead of typing in your search terms, you just drill down through the categories and subcategories which the directory provides. Directories are not as flexible as search engines, but they often contain less unrelated "junk" to weed through, and the category/subcategory system can often provide useful clues as to how other people tend to group the data through which you are sifting, perhaps even suggesting some new search phrases to go back and try in a search engine. Many directories are maintained by the same folks who operate the search engines - One can visit Google's directory, Yahoo's directory, or directories maintained by of the other major or minor search engines. Open Directory Project (which also has a search engine) is often an excellent choice.

Aside from the "general purpose" search engines and directories, there are many search engines and directories which are more narrowly focused. Often these can be an good way to go if you can find one related to your particular area of interest. If you are looking for independent bands and musicians, for instance, you might find CDBaby or or the All Music Guide to be an excellent choice. If searching for information likely to be provided by the U.S. government, the government's own search portal, FirstGov.gov would make a good choice.

If search engines and directories fail to yield relevant information, or if the results raise more questions than answers, another step you can take is to seek out a forum related to the topic you are exploring. Use the search engines and directories to find an appropriate topical forum. Once you find the forum, you can sign up and post your questions. The results are not as rapid as with search engines and directories - It can take hours or even days for the right person to read and respond to your post, and with a hard question or a low-traffic forum your results might not be very useful. Still, there are many helpful and knowledgeable people out there who will answer the questions you post and respond to follow-up questions as well, so this route is often worth a try.

If you want answers badly enough to actually part with money, another option you might consider is Google Answers. Using this service you can (sometimes for a very low price) hire one of Google's "carefully screened researchers" to answer a question. I haven't tried this yet, but it looks like a neat concept.

Hopefully the foregoing will be helpful as you track down the knowledge you are looking for - Happy hunting!

1/16/2007 Note: If appears Google Answers is no longer taking questions at this time, although you can still look at their previous questions and answers.