<ul><li>Indexes in MySQL act as a table of contents for the database, allowing for quick searching and retrieval of data.</li><li>An experiment on 80,000+ records revealed that adding an index on a column like city in MySQL resulted in a significant performance improvement.</li><li>Without indexing, a query took an average of ~420ms with a full table scan, while with indexing, the average time reduced to ~8ms with an index lookup.</li><li>Key takeaways: Indexes reduce query execution time, EXPLAIN is vital for SQL performance debugging, but indexes can slow down write operations slightly.</li></ul>

Cracking MySQL Performance: What is Indexing and Why It Matters

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