No, the column order in the table is not important at all for the performance of any related query or any additional index.

A table T1(a, b) is equivalent to T2(b, a), if the data inside is the same. The order of the columns matter only for an index key, because there the data is ordered after the first column of the key.

PS: let's say on table Table1 (a, b, c, d) an index is created the following way:

CREATE INDEX idx_Table1 ON Table1 (a, b);

This creates an index, which is a data structure additional to a table in the format of a balanced tree (B-Tree) that helps some queries run faster. The index key is that pair formed of the data from columns (a,b) concatenated.

For example a query like:

select a from Table1 where a = 1 and b = 2

would use the index idx_Table1, while a query like:

select a from Table1 where b = 1 and c = 1

would most probably wouldn't use it but would benefit from an index:

CREATE INDEX idx_Table2 ON Table1 (b, a);

Some references:

• The MySQL reference page for CREATE INDEX is here.

• How MySQL uses indexes: reference page.

• A nice book on indexes: Use The Index, Luke.

PROBLEM

You need to insert nothing ?

SOLUTION

Then, insert nothing at all ... literally !!!

One of the following will work

INSERT INTO test2 () VALUES (),(),();
INSERT INTO test2 (test) VALUES (NULL),(NULL),(NULL);
INSERT INTO test2 (id) VALUES (NULL),(NULL),(NULL);

SAMPLE DATA

use test
DROP TABLE IF EXISTS test2;
CREATE TABLE test2
(id int not null auto_increment primary key,
test int not null default 0);
SHOW CREATE TABLE test2\G
SELECT * FROM test2;

SAMPLE DATA LOADED

mysql> use test
Database changed
mysql> DROP TABLE IF EXISTS test2;
Query OK, 0 rows affected (0.11 sec)

mysql> CREATE TABLE test2
    -> (id int not null auto_increment primary key,
    -> test int default 0);
Query OK, 0 rows affected (0.34 sec)

mysql> SHOW CREATE TABLE test2\G
*************************** 1. row ***************************
       Table: test2
Create Table: CREATE TABLE `test2` (
  `id` int(11) NOT NULL AUTO_INCREMENT,
  `test` int(11) NOT NULL DEFAULT '0',
  PRIMARY KEY (`id`)
) ENGINE=InnoDB DEFAULT CHARSET=latin1
1 row in set (0.00 sec)

mysql> SELECT * FROM test2;
Empty set (0.00 sec)

mysql>

QUERIES EXECUTED

If id and test are the only two columns in the table, the INSERT does not need a column list. If there are other columns in test2 besides id and test, name the test column and insert a NULL. Keep in mind, inserting a NULL into a column that has DEFAULT 0 will become 0.

mysql> SELECT * FROM test2;
Empty set (0.00 sec)

mysql> INSERT INTO test2 () VALUES (),(),();
Query OK, 3 rows affected (0.03 sec)
Records: 3  Duplicates: 0  Warnings: 0

mysql> INSERT INTO test2 (test) VALUES (NULL),(NULL),(NULL);
Query OK, 3 rows affected, 3 warnings (0.06 sec)
Records: 3  Duplicates: 0  Warnings: 3

mysql> INSERT INTO test2 (id) VALUES (NULL),(NULL),(NULL);
Query OK, 3 rows affected (0.06 sec)
Records: 3  Duplicates: 0  Warnings: 0

mysql> SELECT * FROM test2;
+----+------+
| id | test |
+----+------+
|  1 |    0 |
|  2 |    0 |
|  3 |    0 |
|  4 |    0 |
|  5 |    0 |
|  6 |    0 |
|  7 |    0 |
|  8 |    0 |
|  9 |    0 |
+----+------+
9 rows in set (0.00 sec)

mysql>

GIVE IT A TRY !!!

CAVEAT #1 : I did this in Windows 8.1 from the command line

mysql> select * from information_schema.global_variables
    -> where variable_name like 'version%';
+-------------------------+------------------------------+
| VARIABLE_NAME           | VARIABLE_VALUE               |
+-------------------------+------------------------------+
| VERSION_COMMENT         | MySQL Community Server (GPL) |
| VERSION_COMPILE_MACHINE | x86_64                       |
| VERSION_COMPILE_OS      | Win64                        |
| VERSION                 | 5.6.15                       |
+-------------------------+------------------------------+
4 rows in set (0.07 sec)

mysql>

CAVEAT #2 : I am using MySQL's default SQL mode. Thus, I did not need to disable anything.