To be able to provide fast results, the engine pre-computes a part of the order at indexing time. This means only one sorting is available for a single index. Each additional sort will result in an additional index.
In Magento, this means that by default we create:
- 1 index per store
- 1 index per store per additional sort order (by price, by date, etc.)
To calculate the amount of records this generates, let’s have a look at the following example:
Our Magento webshop has 2 stores (2 languages for example) which both have 100 products. Both stores have additional sorts on price and date, resulting in a total of 4 additional sorts.
Using the scenario above, we would need to index:
| Default sorting | 100 * 2 | 200 |
| Custom sorting | 100 * 2 * 4 | 800 |
| Total records | 1000 |
If the customer group feature is enabled, each customer group will result in an extra index on the pricing sorting. Following the example above, but with a total of 5 customer groups will result in:
| Default sorting | 100 * 2 | 200 |
| Pricing sorting | 100 * 2 * 2 * 5 | 2000 |
| Custom sorting | 100 * 2 * 2 | 400 |
| Total records | 2600 |
The amount of records indexed can be lowered by removing some of the sorts. The sorts can be configured in the extension’s administration panel.
