Speeding Up Your Website’s Database - Smashing Coding
While Google's inclusion of page speed in search rankings has focused attention on file sizes and server settings, the actual assembly of pages on the server—particularly database queries in PHP or ASP—often receives overlooked scrutiny. This article provides practical methods to identify and eliminate database bottlenecks, from simple techniques like indexing frequently queried columns and using JOINs to combine multiple queries, to more advanced approaches like application-level caching and query optimization. The piece includes diagnostic tools, code examples for timing database performance, and explains when common optimization strategies like table optimization and MySQL caching actually help versus when they're ineffective.