Oh I have a nasty query which runs incredibly slowly. I am running MySQL
4.0.20-standard. Thus, in trying to expedite the query, I am trying to set
indexes in my tables.
My query requires four inner joins, as follows :

SELECT DISTINCT
upcards.id,statuskey.status,upcards.firstname,upcards.lastname,originkey.ori
gin,associatekey.username,associatekey2.username,upcards.deleted
FROM upcards,status,origins,associates
INNER JOIN status statuskey on upcards.statuskey=statuskey.id
INNER JOIN origins originkey on upcards.originkey=originkey.id
INNER JOIN associates associatekey on upcards.associatekey=associatekey.id
INNER JOIN associates associatekey2 on
upcards.associatekey2=associatekey2.id
WHERE (upcards.deleted is null OR upcards.deleted = 0) AND
(associatekey.branch IS NULL OR associatekey.branch LIKE '' OR
associatekey.branch LIKE '%');

The tables structure is:

table upcards
id
firstname
lastname
deleted
statuskey
originkey
associatekey
associatekey2

table status
id
status

table origins
id
origins

table associates
id
username
branch

Thus, to expedite my query, I am setting my indexes as follows: (id is a
PRIMARY key on all tables)
for the table upcards I set as indexes:
deleted
statuskey
originkey
associatekey
associatekey2

and for associates:
branch

In doing so, I have every column thus indexed, you would think this query
would run faster, but it does not. Is there a better means of setting my
indexes here to speed up this query? Perhaps there is a more efficient way
to write this query, i.e. perhaps the problem is not so much with my
indexing, as with the query itself? Thanks, Ike