how to find the number of occurrences of a substring within a string vb.net

the best way to do it is this:

Public Function countString(ByVal inputString As String, ByVal stringToBeSearchedInsideTheInputString as String) As Integer
    Return System.Text.RegularExpressions.Regex.Split(inputString, stringToBeSearchedInsideTheInputString).Length -1

End Function

Yet another idea:

Dim input As String = "Hello there. My name is John. I work very hard. Hello there!"
Dim phrase As String = "Hello there"
Dim Occurrences As Integer = (input.Length - input.Replace(phrase, String.Empty).Length) / phrase.Length

You just need to make sure that phrase.Length > 0.

str="Thisissumlivinginsumgjhvgsum in the sum bcoz sum ot ih sum"
b= LCase(str)
array1=Split(b,"sum")
l=Ubound(array1)
msgbox l

the output gives u the no. of occurences of a string within another one.