Reindexing the data in Magento is a common task most developers and store owners will have to carry out, but sometimes the re-indexing can take a very long time and cause the operation to time-out. A quicker way to achieve the re0-indexing of your store data is via SSH.

If you are not familiar with using SSH you should try and read up on the basics first and should only be attempted when you are comfortable with what you are doing.

Once you have connected to your server via SSH, cd to the root of your Magento installation and then run

php shell/indexer.php reindexall

Wait for each line to notify you the reindexing has been successful before closing your connection. The feed back will look like the below.

Product Attributes index was rebuilt successfully
Product Prices index was rebuilt successfully
Catalog URL Rewrites index was rebuilt successfully
Product Flat Data index was rebuilt successfully
Category Flat Data index was rebuilt successfully
Category Products index was rebuilt successfully
Catalog Search Index index was rebuilt successfully
Stock Status index was rebuilt successfully
Tag Aggregation Data index was rebuilt successfully
Customer Points Index index was rebuilt successfully
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