Does Laravel's “soft_delete” need index on MySQL?

Question

If i\'m using soft delete in laravel 4.2 (database is mysql), every eloquent query has WHERE deleted_at IS NULL. There are no indexes on deleted_at

Answer 1

I don't know why the above by @N.B. has so many upvotes, in my context I find this completely incorrect.

I added indexes to deleted_at timestamps on some keys tables and enjoyed some queries dropping from 32s to less than 5.4ms. It really depends on the nature of of your app.

In my scenario, I have 3 tables with soft deletes, some simple joins (all with indexes), but my queries suffered due to the default nature of Laravel's handling of soft deletes.

I highly recommended indexing these columns so your app does choke when record numbers elevate.