How to speed up “select count(*)” with “group by” and “where”?

Question

How to speed up select count(*) with group by?
It\'s too slow and is used very frequently.
I have a big trouble using select count(*)

Answer 1

I see that a few individuals have asked what engine you were using for the query. I would highly recommend you use MyISAM for the following reasions:

InnoDB - @Sorin Mocanu properly identified that you will do a full table scan regardless of indexes.

MyISAM - always keeps the current row count handy.

Lastly, as @justin stated, make sure you have the proper covering index:

CREATE INDEX ix_temp ON relations (relation_title, object_title);