title: Is there and alternative to LIKE statement in T-SQL?
body: <p><strong>I have a scenario</strong> where I need to perform following operation:</p>
  
  <pre><code>SELECT *
  FROM
  [dbo].[MyTable]
  WHERE
  [Url] LIKE '%&lt;some url&gt;%';
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>I have to use two % (wildcard characters) at the beginning and the end of Url (<code>'%&lt;some url&gt;%'</code>) as user should be able to search the complete url even if he types partial text. For example, if url is <a href="http://www.google.co.in" rel="nofollow">http://www.google.co.in</a> and user types "goo", then the url must appear in search results. <code>LIKE</code> operator is causing performance issues. <strong>I need an alternative</strong> so that I can get rid of this statement and wildcards. In other words, <strong>I don't want to use LIKE statement in this scenario</strong>. I tried using T-SQL <code>CONTAINS</code> but it is not solving my problem. Is there any other alternative available than can perform pattern matching and provide me results quickly?</p>